


a song inside the halls of the dark

by ms_scarlet



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Friendship, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Crime, Danger Will Robinson, Drinking & Talking, Emotional, Emotional Baggage, Emotions all over the carpet, F is for Fighting, F/M, Fighting isn't the only thing F is for, First Aid, Graphic Description, Gun Violence, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, I feel like that last one's a given with the show but you know, Kind of? I don't personally think so but better safe than sorry, Mild Kink, Near Death Experiences, Panic Attacks, Rough Sex, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Violence, Warning: Dean, canon atypical communication, just a little though, spoilers through 304
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:15:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 89,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23218357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_scarlet/pseuds/ms_scarlet
Summary: "Here's how we're gonna do this," Rio's voice is soft, intimate, sending a shiver up Beth's spine. "You're gonna get in the car, and I'm not gonna shoot you in the leg."That's when Beth realizes his gun is out, suddenly feeling it pressed to her thigh, "Then you're gonna stop fuckin' testing me because one of these days, I'm not gonna give you a warning, yeah?""You- you can't-" Beth's trembling, and she knows it's obvious because he smiles, and it isn't a nice smile, "You need me alive, remember?""There are all kinds of ways you can shoot someone so they don't die," Rio chucks her chin, a glancing touch that barely connects, and backs up a step. "You should know, darlin'."
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 478
Kudos: 738





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this after 304 and while I loved 305 (the intensity! the darkness! the tension!) it moved the emotional goal posts a bit from where I was starting so I’m electing to ignore it and say this goes canon-divergent after 304. Sorry/not sorry. 
> 
> The most massive of thank yous to [nickmillerscaulk](https://nickmillerscaulk.tumblr.com/), the best beta reader a girl could ask for. She answered my desperate plea not realizing she was signing on to talk me through a meltdown in addition to beta-ing. She is a delight and also a genius. Her advice and feedback have made this so much better than it would’ve been without her.
> 
> Title from Outnumbered by Dermot Kennedy

To say Beth's night had not gone as planned is a bit of an understatement. 

It started out simple enough. Beth found herself alone for the first evening in longer than she could remember. Dean independently decided to be an active parent for the first time in his life and had taken the kids to the Mall of America with someone he worked with, tacking himself onto their family vacation. Ruby and Annie were both working, so Beth wasn't expecting either of them to drop by.

If she were smarter, she'd go to the Paper Porcupine and make some money, but after the other night, when Rio watched her make her money at gunpoint and Beth oscillated wildly between pride and terror and-

_ And nothing. _

Anyway, she just can't. 

She wants a break. She  _ needs _ a break. She's been running on fear and adrenaline for so long she doesn't remember what calm feels like.

So, instead, Beth poured herself a drink, already thinking about her next one. She thought maybe, just maybe, two bourbons in she could turn off...everything and take a bath. An all the way bath. Break out the candles and the bubbles and the oils and her good towels—the unreasonably fluffy ones she saves for special guests—and make a night of it. 

Obviously, right as she decides to go for it, Rio appears in the doorway between the mudroom and the kitchen, making Beth jump enough that she pours bourbon all over the island as well as in her glass.

But it isn't until he's there in front of her—she hadn't even heard the door open, how does he  _ do _ that—that she realizes he hasn't been in her house since that day, when she- when  _ they'd- _

He leans back against her counter, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, and all Beth can see is how different he'd been that last time: loose, open, and cautiously affectionate, versus now: tense, closed off, and cold.

They stare at each other for one long moment. Beth is a live wire, an exposed nerve. She throws back at least half her drink in one gulp. 

"Bottoms up," Rio says. "We're goin' out."

"What? Why?" Beth grabs a sponge and starts wiping off the counter, "I was-"

"Yeah, so, I don't really care." His tone's light, but the kind of light Beth knows is a facade, "I need you to go out, so now you're goin' out."

"I haven't eaten yet." She doesn't even know why she says it, it's not like he cares. It's not even true- well, sort of- she'd had a Lean Cuisine. 

"Get in the car, Elizabeth." The faux pleasant veneer drops out of his voice like a brick, and without waiting for a response, he pushes off the counter and walks back out of the kitchen. 

"Bring your passport," he calls over his shoulder as he goes out the door, leaving Beth to decide which is the stupider choice: go with him willingly or stay here knowing full well he'll drag her out of the house by the hair, just to feel like she hadn't gone willingly to the slaughter. 

She sighs and goes to collect her bag.

Personally, Beth feels like she'd dug up her passport, changed her shoes, and brushed her teeth in record time. She'd hesitated for a long moment with her phone, trying to decide if she should text Annie and Ruby, before ultimately deciding it would worry them more than it would help. But from the look Rio gives her when she hurries down the front walk, you'd think he'd been waiting for hours. 

Beth slows as she approaches, noticing Rio isn't alone. There's Mick, and his car—no surprise, Beth's honestly starting to forget he's there some of the time, he's becoming part of the increasingly dissonant wallpaper of her life—but also one of the other ones- Dags, maybe? And she can see the shadowy silhouettes of at least two, maybe three, more guys in the car she assumes is Dags'.

She vaguely remembers a time when she'd worried about what the neighbors would think of gangbangers parking outside her house, but now it seems so trivial. Hell, Mrs. Karpinski was probably starting a book club with them. 

As she walks up, Rio does that complicated handshake guys do with Mick and Dags before they get in their cars.

"What's going on?" Beth asks, the relief of knowing he isn't taking her somewhere to kill her—right? He wouldn't bring a two-car audience just for that?—making her bold. It mixes with the adrenaline and fear, and her nervous system feels like it's on the edge of overload. 

"Yeah, you don't need to know that," Rio says with that pettily jovial tone, thoroughly mocking even the idea that he'd consider telling her anything, that there's so much she doesn't know, and turns, opening the driver's side door. "Get in the car."

But Beth plants her feet in the middle of the street. The problem with drawing things out, playing the same games over and over, is she's starting to get numb to it, "It's 10:30 at night, you showed up out of the blue and told me to grab my  _ passport _ . I'm going to need a little more-" 

Her protest cuts off with a squawk because he's suddenly up in her face, so close she can feel his breath on her cheeks, her nose, her lips. The sudden, abruptly up close and personal exposure to all of the coiled and ruthlessly tamped down violent energy radiating off of him makes her heart speed up to triple time.

Because he's  _ dangerous _ .

Beth refuses to acknowledge any other possible reason.

"Here's how we're gonna do this," Rio's voice is soft, intimate, sending a shiver up Beth's spine. "You're gonna get in the car, and I'm not gonna shoot you in the leg." 

That's when Beth realizes his gun is out, suddenly feeling it pressed to her thigh, "Then you're gonna stop fuckin' testing me because one of these days, I'm not gonna give you a warning, yeah?"

"You- you can't-" Beth's trembling, and she knows it's obvious because he smiles, and it isn't a nice smile, "You need me alive, remember?"

"There are all kinds of ways you can shoot someone so they don't die," Rio chucks her chin, a glancing touch that barely connects, and backs up a step. "You should know, darlin'."

And that-  _ oh _ , that  _ burns. _ The bile rises in Beth's throat so suddenly, a burning boiling mass of rage, fear, shame, and something else she can't identify, that she's barely able to choke it back before it comes spewing out all over the street.

She swallows hard once, twice, pulling herself together—she doesn’t have the luxury of falling apart in front of him, not anymore—then she gets in the car. 

Rio peels out with a squeal of his tires and his boys fall in line behind them. The tension inside the car is so thick Beth's practically able to taste it, but every time she opens her mouth to say anything—what, she has no idea—one look at his locked jaw and white knuckles clenched around the steering wheel has her snapping it shut. 

They ride in loaded, awful silence until they pass the border crossing in a quarter-mile sign, and Rio finally snaps, "Spit it out."

"Where are we going?" Beth asks immediately. He won't answer, but at least she tried. 

"A meeting."

"With who?" 

"You ain't gotta know that."

"What's it about?"

"Business."

"Why am I even here?" Beth asks, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "You obviously don't want me to be."

"You're the moneymaker, ain't you?" The  _ for now _ is so heavily implied, he may as well have said it aloud. 

Rio falls silent for a long moment, and Beth tries to decide what question he won’t answer next when he surprises her. 

"Because of our little-  _ incident," _ he bites off the word with no small amount of disgust, "And all of the bullshit it kicked off, I'm in a position where I have to make some allowances. And one of them is introducing you to someone."

Beth is still rolling that veritable mountain of information around in her head when Rio hits the brakes, and Beth realizes they're already at the border checkpoint. 

"What do I say?" she hisses. 

Rio smirks. "Why don't you try keepin' your mouth shut for a change."

She hates him, she really does.

"Be smart," he advises her.

When the border patrol officer comes up to the window, Beth turns on her nice white lady smile, and Rio puts on his unthreatening, polite society mask. It's fascinating to witness. Beth's been the recipient of it, but she's never had the chance to watch him turn it on. 

His whole posture changes, going from leaned back but tense as hell around the edges to sitting up straight, his shoulders loose. A wide, easy smile spreads across his face, and something around his eyes and mouth softens. The combined effect makes him seem younger, sweeter, nothing like the man Beth's come to know. She wonders how much of it is fake and how much is actually inside him somewhere. 

Rio's shirt is buttoned all the way up, coat collar popped, hiding his tattoo. He sets both hands in plain sight, relaxed and comfortable on the wheel. He waits until the officer is at the window before rolling it down, keeping his movements smooth and steady. Beth flashes back to her own trip across the border, remembering how tense she'd been, how obviously uptight and nervous. It's no wonder she'd been pulled aside, she'd practically been screaming  _ I am up to something. _

It seems so funny now, so innocent. Beth had been so far in over her head without even a passing concept of the depth below her. 

"Evening, officer," Rio says, still smiling that pleasant smile. Beth doesn't know how he does it, how he's so convincing in every mask he wears. Not thirty minutes ago, he'd had a gun on her—the gun she knows he still has on him, the gun she knows he won't hesitate to use—and now he's grinning at the officer like an overgrown boy scout. 

She needs to remember that. How good Rio is at making the world see what he wants them to see. 

"Where're you two headed tonight?" the officer asks, studying their passports. Beth wonders what Rio's says. 

"I'm taking my girl out to a place in Windsor," Rio says, resting an arm along the top of her headrest. Beth leans into him, almost but not quite to the point that her head rests on his arm, but close enough that she can feel his muscles jump at the proximity. She does her best to look like she wants to climb him, not strangle him.

She must be a better actress than she thought because the officer gives them a long, considering look and then hands their passports back, wishing them a pleasant evening. Rio very nearly jerks his arm away from Beth when he goes to take them back—he slides both of them into his pocket, effectively tethering Beth to him for the duration of their trip—but plays it off enough that the officer doesn't blink.

Then they're pulling through the checkpoint and driving for a few minutes in silence. The thick, horrible tension from before is back, and it makes Beth want to crawl out of her skin. 

"How long until we're there?" She doesn't actually expect him to tell her, but figures it never hurts to try.

"Three hours."

_ Great. _

***

The loft is dark; the shadows are deep and sinister and stretch across the floor towards her, skeletal fingers grasping, clinging, tugging, pulling her towards something on the floor. Something she doesn't want to see, can't look at. Beth can hear a sputtering, coughing, choking sound, and it echoes, echoes, echoes all around her, and it's the worst, most helpless, most broken noise she's ever heard. It opens a gaping, bottomless black pit inside her and it hurts, it  _ aches _ because it's so broken, so pained, and she knows it's her fault and there's nothing she can do to fix it.

Then Rio's beside her, dressed all in black, feet planted and hands clasped behind him, looking down toward the thing on the floor. The something she can't, won't look at.

"I don't want it," Beth tells him.

"It's on you, though," he replies.

Then Beth realizes there's a gun in her hand. She looks down at it, not sure where it came from, and there's just enough light to see the gold finish, and she flings it away from her, fast like it burns.

"That ain't enough," Rio tells her.

"Nothing is," she replies.

And now the thing on the floor is at her feet, and the sputtering, coughing, choking sound is all she can hear. Her own breathing is speeding up, stuttering, breaking, and she looks down. It's Rio, of course it's Rio, lying on the floor, blood pouring from his mouth, dark shirt going darker as more blood spreads out in a pool beneath him like wings.

Beth drops to her knees and leans forward, slowly, every bone in her body aching in protest. She reaches a trembling hand towards his chest, and right before she makes contact, a bag's yanked over her head. Everything goes dark, and it's suffocating her—the musty dryness filling her nose, her mouth, creeping down her throat into her lungs and she can't breathe, she can't breathe, she  _ can't breathe- _

Beth jerks awake, fingers flying to her throat, grasping for a bag that isn't there. And it's  _ dark, _ so dark, and everything's moving, and she's going to be sick, she needs-

She fumbles along the car door, rolling down the window, gulping for air. The wind rushes through the car, and she forces herself to take a long, slow breath. Then another. Then a third.

Beth can feel each muscle in her body start to unlock.

"You throw up in my car, we're gonna have problems." Beth looks over, and Rio's focused on the road, not looking at her, jaw clenched so tight she can see the muscle jumping.

She wonders how much of her nightmare he caught from the outside.

"Add it to my tab."

He starts like his first instinct was to laugh, but he holds it back.

"How far out are we?" Beth asks, rolling up the window and smoothing back her hair. The clock on the dash beams out into the dark car, telling her it's a little after 1:30 in the morning.

"We got some ground rules to go over," he says, ignoring her question. 

"First, you don't say shit," Rio cuts off Beth's protest before she can get out more than a single sputter, turning to look at her, eyes cold, mouth a thin, hard slash across his face. "You'll keep your mouth shut, Elizabeth. You say one fuckin' word, and I will shoot you myself."

Beth swallows hard, "What happens if someone talks to me?"

"You let me fuckin' handle it."

This is the side of Rio she's only just getting to know: so severe, so hard, so cold. The spark she used to always see in him—no matter how angry he was—completely stamped out now.

"Fine. What else?"

"Stay behind me. They're gonna wanna get a look at you, but you just step to the side, not forward. There's gonna be a real clear our side, their side, and you keep your lily-white ass deep on ours."

That's fine, Beth has absolutely no intention of getting any closer to a rival gang faction than she absolutely has to. 

"Okay." 

Rio raises his eyebrows at the lack of argument.

"Better the devil you know, right?" This time the laugh nearly makes it out, and for a split second, his mask cracks, and Beth can see a tiny piece of the Rio she knows and- well, sort of knows. A little bit. Is familiar with, at least.

"Third," he says, changing lanes towards the upcoming exit, "I'm gonna need you to play up that dumb bitch thing you do."

_ "Excuse you?" _

"You know, twirling your hair, batting your big ol' blue eyes, swingin' your hips and shit. Actin' like you don't got a single fuckin' brain cell in that pretty li'l head of yours."

"I have  _ never _ in my  _ life-" _

"Right, right." He's pulling off the highway now onto a long, dark, country road. There aren't any streetlights, so Beth can't see much at all, but she's pretty sure they're surrounded by fields on all sides. "Then fuckin' wing it, whatever you gotta' do. Just make sure they underestimate the hell out of you."

That makes Beth feel a little bit better.

"If they figure out what kind of a treacherous, conniving bitch you are, it's gonna make my life a hell of a lot harder."

Beth  _ hates _ him.

They must be getting close to their destination because Rio slows and lets Mick and Dags pass him. Then they're turning onto a dirt track Beth cannot fathom how any of them found without any kind of signs or landmarks. It's so overgrown it's barely distinguishable from the field around it.

As they bump down the path, Beth stares out the window, amazed by how bright the darkness is now that they're away from the lights along the highway. 

They're driving past a field, and it looks like there's a line of trees up ahead. The sky is an enormous, deep, midnight blue expanse over their heads. It's dotted with what seems like a billion stars, twinkling around and behind a few of the faintest wisps of gossamer cloud cover. The moon is hanging low, heavy and full, casting a bright, silvery light across the tops of the trees and spiky overgrowth in the field.

It's a beautiful night. If Beth were at home, she'd definitely be sitting at the picnic table in the yard with a drink, appreciating it, trying to put all of the death and danger out of her mind for just a moment. 

Instead, she's stuck in a car in a foreign country, with a guy who would murder her in an instant if he had no more use for her, on her way to meet with some people who'd probably hesitate even less, with—Beth checks her phone, no service, figures—with no way to call for help.

It's enough to make a girl briefly reconsider all of the choices she's made over the last two years. 

They pass through the trees and into a clearing lit brightly by the moon, and Rio makes a quiet, angry noise when he sees there are already four cars waiting. Beth can see a cluster of dark shapes standing around or leaning up against the cars, and they all straighten when Rio's crew pulls up. She does a quick headcount; it looks like there are eight people on the other side, so they're outnumbered too. 

_ Fantastic _ .

She glances over at Rio, and it's so dark in the car she can barely make him out, but the ambient star and moonlight are just enough that she can see the tight, hard line of his mouth and furrow of his brow and the way his hands are clenched tight around the wheel. 

Mick and Dags pull up and park, leaving ample space in the middle but slightly behind their cars. Without warning, Rio guns the engine and pulls the handbrake, whipping them into a spin and throwing Beth hard up against the window. 

The car jumps and rocks, and Beth's not any kind of a stunt driver, but even she's pretty sure trying to do a donut on uneven ground is a terrible idea. Rio pulls it off, though, sliding to a halt neatly in the space Mick and Dags had left him, facing the other way and spraying dirt and dust all over the assembled group. 

Right, so, that's the kind of meeting this is going to be.

Rio swings out of the car without waiting for her and pulls his phone out as he ambles up to the group, his boys falling into formation behind him. Beth climbs out of the car, brushing herself off, doing her best not to attract any attention.

"'Ey," Rio's making a show of texting, taking his time "If I'd known you were plannin' a party, I would've brought a cake or some shit." 

Beth's phone lights up, and she glances down at it. She's got a new text from an unknown number. 

_ keep ur fckn mouth shut _

_ Lovely.  _

She schools her face as she crosses around the car, putting a little extra swing in her hips as she high steps over the uneven ground. As she approaches the group, Mick shifts a little closer to her and, remembering Rio's advice- well, demand, she stops just behind him.

"You seem to have turned up some extra guests even without the invitation," the person at the front of the other group says. Beth's surprised to realize she's a woman. Not that- Obviously Beth doesn't think women can't be criminal masterminds, she's just surprised because up until this point her exposure to the crime scene made it seem like a pretty uniformly boys club. 

"You forget how to tell time?" the woman asks.

"Got caught up," Rio puts his phone away and rolls his shoulders back, taking a wide stance with his hands crossed in front of him and his boys close in, forming an unsubtle wall behind him. Mick hangs back slightly, blocking Beth from getting closer. 

The woman's standing tall, her back straight and hands on her hips. Beth can see a mass of long, dark, curling hair tumbling down her back, a strikingly feminine contrast to her welding jacket, work boots, and hard expression. She looks like she's almost the same height as Rio, but the sheer, looming mass of the men assembled behind her makes her look tiny, though no less in command. 

It's an impressive picture, one that makes Beth straighten up a little, and the movement catches the woman's eye for a second before her attention snaps back to Rio. 

"What'd you bring me?"

Dags tosses a duffle bag at her feet, and she tilts her chin, giving one of her boys the signal to grab it and dig through it. He passes her a stack of bills, and she absently thumbs the bills like a flipbook, never taking her eyes off of Rio, who watches her right back. They're frozen facing each other like two predators on the hunt, both poised to go for the kill and just waiting for their moment. 

Beth is suddenly excruciatingly aware that she's all by herself, surrounded by people who don't care about her, who are all armed and, she presumes, violent. The clearing is still and quiet, the only sound of movement coming from the guy rummaging through the bag, stacking up bills. Beth swallows hard. She's so alone here.

One of the woman's crew pulls out a light and shines it over the bills—UV Beth assumes—and a flush of pride breaks through the terror when the guy says the cash checks out. 

"That the forger?" the woman asks Rio, turning to Beth before he has a chance to answer. "You make this?"

Beth opens her mouth to reply and then stops, snapping it shut with a glance at Rio, who's not looking at her. 

She nods, and the woman smirks at Rio, "Got her trained up like a good little bitch, huh?"

She might as well have slapped Beth across the face. She isn't anyone's  _ dog. _

"Yeah, I made it," Beth's voice rings out before she'd even fully decided to speak up, and she sees Rio's shoulders tighten as the woman's attention swings full force back to Beth. "It's a proprietary process. I figured it out myself."

The woman's grinning now, but it's more shark than pleasant, "That right? Maybe you want to branch out, huh? Come work for a real organization for a change?"

The patronizing tone puts Beth's back up even further, "I work for myself."

Now Rio looks at her, a fast, furious glance, and the woman throws her head back and laughs, a sparkling, bell-like sound that echoes around the clearing before focusing again on Rio, "You always bring me the  _ best _ presents."

"Hey, now." He's using his honey trap voice. The one that always resonates at the base of Beth's spine and makes her knees a little weak, not that she would ever in a million years admit that to him. 

Something in her twists because she knows the look that goes with that voice, and he's pointing it at this other woman, which is a stupid and insane thing to get hung up on for more reasons than she can count, and  _ god _ , she really does have the worst instincts. 

"You know that ain't how this works, Mia. You want a piece of the pie, you gotta go through me."

The woman, Mia, shrugs, "That up for negotiation at all? Word is you got a lot on your plate right now. Maybe you give her to me, and me and my boys figure out how to franchise her."

Beth really,  _ really _ hates that she can't see Rio's expression. From her angle, she can only see a sliver of his face, and he's holding himself so still, it gives her nothing.

"Nah, nah," his voice is still smooth and easy, but Beth sees his boys come a little bit more to attention and notices Mia's boys do the same.

"Come on, Rio. Think about it," she steps closer to him, the fluid movement more like a dance step than anything so pedestrian as walking. 

"It'll be like old times," her voice goes deeper, huskier as she says it, loaded with promise and history. Then she lays a hand on his chest, and Beth tastes bile at the back of her throat. 

Rio reaches up and twines a lock of her hair around one finger, slowly pulling it out, letting the curl slide through his fingers. And that something in Beth twists so sharp and sudden she gasps loud enough that the corner of Mia's mouth quirks.

She must've given some sort of signal because one of Mia's boys takes a step in Beth's direction, and without even looking, so fast Beth can barely track the movement, Rio pulls his gun out of the waistband of his pants and shoots the guy in the knee.

The guy goes down with a hoarse cry, and Mick grabs Beth by the arm, hard enough that she cries out herself, and yanks her behind him. A ripple goes through the crowd, and Beth realizes everyone has their guns out—pointed at the ground, but clearly on high alert and ready to go—except Mia, who takes a step back, both hands in the air.

Beth blinks. Rio just shot someone. And now he's just over there bleeding on the ground. Because he was shot. By Rio.

Beth lurches to the side and loses her Lean Cuisine all over the grass.

One of Mia's guys steps forward and hauls the guy up and back towards their cars. The guy with the ruined knee lets out a pained whimper entirely at odds with the hulking, tattooed mass of him when he tries to walk, and it makes Beth's stomach lurch and head spin. She can see that the leg of his jeans has gone black with blood from the knee down, and she retches again, but there's nothing left to come up.

"Oh, so it's like that, huh?" Mia laughs that silver bell laugh again, and Beth wants to claw her eyes out. 

Rio doesn't say anything, doesn't move at all as far as Beth can tell, but whatever Mia reads on his face has her laugh trailing off as she cocks her head and studies him, suddenly contemplative. 

"Oh  _ shit _ , well, isn't this interesting." 

Mick swears so softly under his breath that Beth probably wouldn't have been able to hear it if she were even six inches farther away. Rio still has his gun out, hanging it deceptively loosely at his side, but Beth can see the tension radiating off of him in the way he's holding himself, the angle of his neck, the bend of his knees. He's ready to move at any moment.

"Alright, alright," Mia takes another step back, which, it seems to Beth like that should relax everyone, but instead, the tension gets thicker, and goosebumps erupt up and down Beth's arms. Her skin feels clammy, and her stomach's still roiling. A light breeze winds through the clearing and the leaves on the trees  _ shush shush shush _ against each other. "I see I misread the situation. My bad."

"We gonna talk terms or we just wastin' each other's time?" Rio drawls. 

The playful edge drops off of Mia's face like a stone, "What're you offering?"

"50/50."

"Now who's wastin' time?"

"You want to keep hagglin', or should we just settle on 70/30 because you know I ain't goin' lower than that?"

Mia thinks it over, jaw rocking back and forth, a gesture Beth recognizes, knows intimately. 

"500g in biweekly drops?" Mia asks.

Beth nearly chokes, there is no way in hell she can make that much that fast. 

"You can move it that fast?" Beth can hear the surprise in Rio's voice, the thread of respect and something spikes in her chest.

"Baby, you know I can move anything I put my mind to. The question is, can you keep up with me yet?" 

_ No. _ Beth thinks. 

"Yeah," Rio says. "You know stamina ain't a problem for me."

Mia smiles a slow, filthy smile, and Beth wonders if the entire reason she's here is to witness this show. It's a cruel new type of punishment, she'll give him that. 

Beth's suddenly so, so tired. She doesn't know what the point of any of this was. She wants to go home, wants her bath, wants her bed, wants to forget this night ever happened.

Then Mia nods and spits in her hand, which is  _ disgusting, _ holding it out to Rio, "We got ourselves a deal then."

Mick takes a small step back, shuffling Beth towards the cars, as Rio laughs and shakes Mia's hand. 

They hold on for a long moment, and Beth tries to duck around Mick to see what's happening, but he's herding her a little more insistently now, trying to be subtle about it, but moving her definitively towards the cars. 

Mia leans in and whispers something in Rio's ear, and whatever it is, it has his shoulders going tighter, whether in surprise, anger, desire, Beth couldn't say. Then Mia's stepping back and then back again, and her boys are closing in around her. 

Then everything happens at once. 

Rio swings around and meets Mick's eye, who gives up being subtle and shoves Beth hard towards the car. Beth trips over a rock and goes down on one knee right as she hears a firework go off and the rear window of Rio's car—the window she'd been headed straight for—shatters. Then there are a lot of fireworks, and Beth realizes they're gunshots right as Mick yanks her up by the back of her shirt, tearing it a little, not letting her stand all the way up and shoving her the rest of the way to the car. 

Beth stumbles towards the driver's side door because it's closer, fumbling with the handle for an eternity as guns fire and glass shatters and metal pings all around her, and the realization that she might actually die tonight crystallizes in her mind. 

She gets the door open and starts to duck in as a strong hand comes down on her back, shoving her forward and someone— _ Rio _ she realizes with a hot, sharp bolt of pure, concentrated relief—shouts at her to stay down as she clambers over the center console. 

Then Rio turns on the car and slams the door and his foot all the way down on the grass simultaneously. The tires spin for a breathless moment before they're peeling out and flying through the trees and down the dirt track so fast they gain a little air with every rock and rivet they bounce over. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You got this?"
> 
> She nods, and he lets her go. The back of her neck feels a little damp and clammy without the warm weight of his hand.
> 
> Beth closes her eyes and keeps her head down, focusing on keeping her breathing even, trying not to think of the popping fireworks sound, the broken glass, Mia's laugh, the blood spraying from that guy's knee, Rio shooting him, the sound the guy made as he went down, when he tried to walk-
> 
> Bile surges up her throat and she gags.
> 
> "What’d I tell you before?" There's a strained edge to his voice like he really cannot handle the idea of her throwing up right now. Beth smiles- just a little, a twitch, a reflex- because it's ridiculous that after everything that’s just happened, he still has the energy to be particular about his space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I know fuck all about blood loss and first aid and only did a minimal amount of googling so if some of this isn’t plausible, please know that I don’t actually care.
> 
> Once again, the highest of fives and all of the adoration and gratitude I'm capable of conveying to [nickmillerscaulk](https://www.w3schools.com/) both for beta-ing and for being so extremely awesome all around.

They ride in silence for a few moments, and all Beth can hear is the pounding of her heart and the harsh, ragged gasp of her breathing. There's also an odd buzzing noise that she can't figure out until she hears Rio say  _ 'ey, _ and she realizes it was his phone.

Whoever's on the other line is worked up enough that Beth can hear muffled yelling, but not loud enough that she can make out the words.

"I'll meet you tomorrow, yeah?" Beth can hear more yelling, but it seems like it's winding down. "A'ight."

Rio hangs up the phone with a curse, and it immediately lights back up.

"Ey," he says, bringing it to his ear, keeping one hand on the wheel. Whoever's on the line this time is calmer because Beth can't hear anything from her side of the car. 

"Yeah, tomorrow, usual place." Rio hangs up, tossing the phone in a cup holder and pressing his hand to his side like he's got a stitch in it.

"What the hell was that?" Beth asks. It comes out shrill and awful and more than a little hysterical, but considering she was just caught in the middle of a  _ gunfight _ , she figures she's allowed some theatrics.

"That was some dumb shit that wouldn’t’ve happened if you'd kept your fuckin' mouth shut like I fuckin' told you to," he snarls. 

" _ Me?" _ she gapes at him. Maybe it's the fact that she's been living in fear for so long, maybe it's the fact that it's just the two of them and it's always been different when it's only the two of them, maybe it's because she was just  _ shot at. M _ aybe it's the fact that she's exhausted and overwhelmed and running on pure adrenaline, but at that moment all of the fear that's consumed her life the past few weeks leaves her so fast her head spins, and everything turns to cotton. "I- She-  _ You-" _

Then Beth's hyperventilating—gasping and heaving, she's not getting any air _. _ There's a rising whine in her ears, and over it, she can hear Rio curse and tell her to put her head between her legs. He sounds like he's a million miles away, all distant and warped like his voice is coming down the wrong side of a telescope, which doesn't even make  _ sense _ because telescopes don't conduct sound, and oh  _ god, _ she can't  _ breathe- _

Rio's hand comes down on the back of her neck, forcing her head down, commanding her to  _ breathe in _ , then  _ breathe out, _ then  _ again,  _ then  _ again. _

The furious command in his tone is bizarrely, comfortingly familiar—there's something wrong with her, she knows—and it cuts through the fog thickening in her head. She does what he says and breathes deep, then again, and again, feeling herself come back to her body with each exhale.

"You got this?"

She nods, and he lets her go. The back of her neck feels a little damp and clammy without the warm weight of his hand.

Beth closes her eyes and keeps her head down, focusing on keeping her breathing even, trying not to think of the popping fireworks sound, the broken glass, Mia's laugh, the blood spraying from that guy's knee, Rio shooting him, the sound the guy made as he went down, when he tried to walk-

Bile surges up her throat and she gags.

"What’d I tell you before?" There's a strained edge to his voice like he really cannot handle the idea of her throwing up right now. Beth smiles- just a little, a twitch, a reflex- because it's ridiculous that after everything that’s just happened, he still has the energy to be particular about his space.

Then she remembers she just got shot at and watched him shoot someone, and also he hates her and wants to kill her because she shot him, and she really has no business smiling at anything right now.

Beth closes her eyes, rests her forehead on her knees, and keeps breathing.

After a while, she feels the car bump over a curb, stripes of light washing over the interior. She sits up, blinking in the sudden brightness and absently wipes at the back of her neck where her hair's weirdly...tacky?

Beth looks around. They've returned to civilization and are parking in a grocery store parking lot, a neon open sign blinking in the window, and lights blazing from inside. She looks over at Rio and frowns. 

He's paler than she's ever seen him, and there are dark spots on the steering wheel, the gear shift, the center console, and when she looks at the hand she'd just touched to the back of her neck, it's smeared with something- 

She rears back. It's  _ blood. _

The interior of the car is  _ covered in blood. _

And now Beth's really looking at him, seeing the tense way he's holding himself, starting to shake a little and the hand clamped to his side, a dark spot spreading out from underneath it and he's- it's-

Rio's been  _ shot. _

Suddenly the world refracts, and everything clicks into hyper-focus. Beth's eyes snap to his, and he's waiting for her—sitting there  _ bleeding,  _ waiting for  _ her _ to get  _ her shit _ together.

His mouth is a tense line, and his eyes are dark, boring into hers. "You with me, ma?" 

She nods, not trusting herself to speak. Rio searches her face for a minute, looking for what, she has no idea, but he must find it because he keeps going. 

"I need you to go in there and get some shit for me, yeah?"

She nods again. Go in. Get shit. She can do that. 

"If they ain't got a first aid kit, I'm gonna need some towels, some kinda thread or dental floss or some shit, somethin' strong, a needle-" 

Beth's nodding along because this list is familiar. After- Well, after she shot him, she spent a lot of time on YouTube watching emergency gunshot first aid video after emergency gunshot first aid video. She still doesn't know exactly why, but it'd been a compulsion she couldn't fight and something to do when she couldn't sleep, which had been most nights those first few weeks.

Her mind's spinning ahead, thinking of which aisles she'll find what in, when he breaks off with a bitten-off curse, curling into himself a little.

Beth instinctively reaches out to him, and he goes ramrod stiff, a tiny noise equal parts pain and anger escaping him, clearly against his will, and, right. This is probably his absolute worst-case scenario: bleeding out and having to rely on the last person to nearly kill him. The same person who would be vastly better off if he did die, a person he's been doing everything in his power to drive over the edge, has been systematically tormenting to help him.

And Beth knows all of that, she does, but it feels so far away compared to the up-close reality of him in front of her, in pain, gutshot and covered in blood.

Besides, she doesn't want  _ anyone _ to die, it's not about Rio.

Still, it's not an opportunity she can afford to pass up.

"If I do this, you owe me." Rio's eyebrows shoot up, then his face hardens. She hates herself for saying it, for even considering taking advantage of the situation. It's- what's she supposed to do? He's left her no choice. 

Jaw tight and face like thunder, Rio nods.

"Say it." 

Beth doesn't know who she is in this moment, this person that can hold someone's life in her hands and make them bargain for it.

He scoffs, "Say it? That's all it takes?"

"You don't lie to me," Beth says, simply.

"You sure 'bout that?"

"Are you actually trying to argue me out of helping you? All I have to do is sit here and wait until you pass out and then take my passport and leave. Last chance."

Something ripples across his face—something that might've even been respect, might’ve been fury, might’ve been both, "What’ll I owe you?"

Beth has no idea. "I'll let you know when the time comes."

There's a long, still, moment, and right when Beth's on the verge of backing down, letting him call her bluff, he nods again.

"Fine."

Almost. "Fine, what?"

He bares his teeth in a vicious snarl, "Fine, I owe you."

A burst of relief and triumph erupts inside her, but Beth keeps her face blank. 

"Okay," she takes a deep breath, steadying herself. "Okay, I've got this."

The look he gives her is honestly uncalled for. How he can look so condescending and skeptical while bleeding out in front of her, after having to bargain for his life, she'll never know.

"I've been spending a lot of time watching field dressing tutorials. It seemed like a good skill set to develop," Beth explains, compelled to defend herself while she gathers her bag and gets out of the car.

Rio snorts, and it turns into a wince, and she freezes, every instinct in her screaming to reach for him, help him, but she knows he won't let her, that she shouldn't want to. 

When the wave passes, he sighs, resigned, and gestures to the glove box. "There's cash in there."

Beth pops it open, grabbing one of the stacks she finds—it’s the only thing she finds there, which is both bizarre and also so appropriately him—and gets out of the car. She hesitates before slamming the door, and leans back in so she can look at him because  _ god, _ he's so  _ pale- _

"Don't die, okay?" Which is just- she doesn't even know why she says it. 

There's a terrible, pragmatic corner of Beth's mind that reminds her how much easier it would make things if he did, and from the look on Rio's face, he's thinking it too. But the rest of her rejects the idea on a visceral level beyond reason or explanation, and she shoves all of it aside, filing it under things to think about when the circumstances aren't life or death. 

Rio doesn't say anything, just watches her in that new, still way that he does, and she decides to take it as a promise because otherwise, she wouldn't be able to leave him here like this.

***

Walking into the grocery store is like passing through a wormhole into an alien universe. The fluorescents buzz and cast a greenish hue over the shelves. The aisles seem to warp and stretch out into the horizon past the point Beth's eye can follow. Compounded by her racing heart and carefully contained—but steadily rising—panic, it's the sort of surreality only found in mundane spaces in the middle of the night.

In the first aid aisle, Beth's fumbling for supplies and her hands are shaking so badly that a bottle of peroxide slips through her fingers, the plastic cap hitting the floor with a sharp crack, shattering and spilling caustic liquid all over the floor. She stands there, staring down at it, her breath coming in harsh gasps. The fluorescent buzz rises to a high pitched whine in her ears, and as she looks up, blinking helplessly at the shelves around her, all she can think is what is she  _ doing? _

She's in a grocery store in Canada in the middle of the night, racing against the clock to save the man that wants to  _ kill her _ . 

She thinks about Rio in the car, hunched over in pain,snarling at her like a wild animal caught in a trap. Then she thinks about how ready he was to walk her out of that bar and put a bullet in her head before she saved herself with that awful, desperate lie. And then she thinks about him lying on the floor, choking on his own blood. 

The lights flare, and the room spins and Beth staggers into the shelf, knocking boxes and bottles and bags to the floor as she flails, looking for anything solid enough to hold her up. She retches once, twice, but her stomach's still empty. The hollow feeling’s enough to snap things back into focus, and she regains control over herself enough to shut everything away.

_ Stop the bleeding first, figure out the rest later.  _

She can't,  _ won't _ , let herself think beyond that right now.

Beth straightens up, wiping her eyes, then her mouth, with the back of her hand. She looks blankly down at the packages scattered across the floor, the peroxide soaking into some of them, warping the cardboard boxes.

She turns and tosses a few boxes of band-aids into her basket on autopilot and moves on.

After checking out—thankfully, the girl at the register was not an Annie and didn't comment on her purchases or make any conversation at all; if she had, Beth's pretty sure she would've just started screaming and screaming and screaming and never be able to stop—she snatches her bags and runs out. She nearly trips over herself as she gets close enough to the car to see Rio's silhouette slumped over against the door. 

For a single, timeless moment, her heart stops, and she feels like she's floating in a suspended, alternate reality outside of herself. Some other Beth races to the driver's side door. Some other Beth fumbles with the handle, taking three tries to get it open. Some other Beth staggers back as Rio sags against her.

And then he groans and stirs, and she's abruptly, excruciatingly present in her body like she's been catapulted back into it from a mile away.

_ He's alive. _

Beth leans over him and tosses the bags into the backseat before wrapping her arms around him and hauling him up and out of the car. The fact that Rio lets her is almost the scariest thing to happen so far tonight. Her knees wobble as she takes his weight and walks him around the car to put him in the passenger seat.

She gets back in the driver's seat where it's warm from him, and there's a lump in her throat she has to fight to swallow around. She looks over, and he's got his head back and eyes closed, but she can see his Adam's apple bob as he swallows, the bird at his throat looking like it's about to take flight. He's still clutching his side, but that can't be- 

She lunges into the back seat, ripping open a roll of paper towels and wadding up nearly half of it. Then she nudges Rio's hand away, pressing it to his side. He nods faintly and puts his hand over hers, pressing down. She takes a moment to absorb the pressure of his hand over hers—it steadies her in a way she's not ready to think about now, maybe ever—before sliding her hand out so she can adjust the seat and throw the car into gear.

They ended up in the kind of suburban commercial district made of strip malls and chain restaurants, and while Beth may not know the area specifically, this is her world. She heads in the direction of the most lights, hoping she's headed towards a highway with a hotel nearby. 

Luck's on her side at least a little, and within a few breathless, endless minutes, she sees a Best Western. 

She parks in the shadows a little ways from the entrance, unsure if hotels have cameras or not and unsure of how much they'd even be able to see, but wanting to play it safe. She looks over at Rio again, and this time his eyes are open, and he's looking at her. His hand is still clamped to his side, and she can see his chest rise and fall, but he's taking shallow little breaths. She can see the pain in the taut line of his jaw.

"I'll be right back, okay?"

He nods, watching her with something Beth doesn't know how to read in his eyes.

The kid behind the counter double-takes when Beth staggers through the doors and up to the desk.

"I need a room."

"I, um, yes. Okay." 

The boy's all of 19 years old, and it sits awkwardly on him, all gangly elbows and an inability to make eye contact—though that last one might be because of her. She can practically feel herself coming apart at the seams and- oh god, is that blood? She surreptitiously rubs at the smudge she's left on the white counter.

"One bed or two?"

"What?" Beth can feel the question bounce off of her without landing.

"Your room?" He blinks at her, confused by her confusion, "One bed or two?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Ooookay," he says with a shrug. "Would you like a suite?" 

She doesn't even know what that word means right now, what she would like is a goddamn room key. "Fine, yes, whatever."

"It's extra, I don't know if that-"

"That's fine, can I have the key?"

"One moment, let me get you set up here." He clacks away at the keyboard one key at a time, and she digs the heels of her hands into her eyes, hoping the pressure will clear her head.

"Name?"

"What?"

"Your name. For the, um, for the reservation?" His confusion is starting to turn to alarm.

"It's not a reservation, I need the room now," she snaps.

"Yeah, no, that's just- I just need a name to put on it. For the computer."

Her mind goes completely blank. In this exact moment, names have entirely ceased to exist. She scrambles for something, anything, she has to know a name, she-

"Elizabeth, um. Hill." That was probably a really stupid name to give him, both components too closely associated with her, but it was the only thing her brain was capable of coughing up.

"Oookay." He clacks away again for a minute, and she drums her fingers on the counter, "Phone number?"

Beth blinks at him, mind racing before it just...stops. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a crumpled wad of cash leftover from the grocery store and sets it on the desk between them. She has no idea how much is in it, but it’s a pretty sizable pile and she sees mostly 20's, so she feels pretty confident it's a decent bribe.

"Give me a  _ fucking room. _ "

The kid's eyes go wide as he takes in the crumpled bills. He looks at her, then looks back down at the cash.

"Alright, Ms. Hill," he says, turning back to the computer with renewed energy. "That should get you all set up, let me just-"

Now his fingers are flying across the keys, and the printer starts going. He snags a room key and runs it through the little machine, grabbing the sheet off the printer while the key loads. 

"You're in room 117, which is on the first floor right around the corner to the left of the front entrance. There's another door closer to your room if you have luggage to bring in. You have a nice night now."

He smiles a bright, plastic smile at her as he slides the receipt and the key across the counter before scooping up the money.

Beth smiles at him, and from the way his smile abruptly drops, she's pretty sure it came out more like a grimace, but it doesn't matter because she's already turning away and heading back out the door.

Rio starts when she gets back in the car and shuts the door.

"How'd it go?" His voice is mostly a whisper, but he's still conscious, so she feels- well, not better, but not too much worse.

"Got a room, just hang on a few more minutes."

She pulls around the side of the hotel and parks, turning and grabbing the shopping bags out of the backseat.

Rio's already got the door open and is trying to lever himself out, but he sways as he stands up, and she darts around to catch him before he can fall. 

"I know this is probably a stupid question, which is why I haven't asked it yet, but are you  _ sure _ you shouldn't go to a hospital?"

He doesn't bother to answer, just laughs, barely more than a heavy, gasping breath.

Beth sighs and readjusts her grip around his waist, trying to make it look more like he's drunk and less like he's maybe bleeding to-  _ nope, not going there- _ just in case anyone's watching. The two of them stagger into the hotel, years of mommy multitasking making it easy for her to balance her bags and his weight, all while fishing out the room key and getting the door open.

When they get inside, Beth steers them to the tiny couch in the suite's miniature seating area. As soon as Rio's shins hit the edge of the cushion, it's like he turns liquid and just slides out of her arms.

She can feel her heartbeat in the tips of her fingers, in the tops of her ears, pounding at her temples and everything is too hot and too cold as she reaches for him, helping him lie down before dumping the fruits of her grocery store scramble on the little coffee table. They hadn't had first aid kits, which seemed like an extreme oversight to her, but she thinks she cobbled together a decent approximation.

Beth frantically casts her mind back to all of those videos she'd compulsively watched in the middle of the night—her eyes burning and blurry with fatigue, but her mind refusing to let her stop—and runs through the steps as she lines her supplies up on the table. 

Water to rinse the wound, peroxide to sterilize it, a lighter to sterilize her tools, tweezers to pull out any debris, a sewing kit with a decently sized needle, unflavored dental floss because she's pretty sure she remembers that regular thread is no good for stitches. She also got scissors, because it seemed likely she'd need those for something, plus three rolls of gauze and an oversized box of band-aids to patch him when she's done.

Rio's watching her through slitted eyes, but not saying anything. She can't tell if that means she did a good job or if the blood loss is so bad, he doesn't have the energy to tell her she's messing up. 

Beth shoves herself up and staggers to the suite's kitchen, dropping her coat on the floor and rolling up her sleeves as she goes. She turns on the water as hot as she can stand it and starts scrubbing her hands. She remembers teaching the kids to sing the birthday song twice as they wash to make sure they're doing a thorough job and starts singing it to herself under her breath, more to keep herself present and centered than anything else.

When she drops back to her knees next to the couch, Rio's eyes are all the way closed, his hand's gone limp, and the bloody mass of paper towels has fallen to the floor beside him. She can see the rise and fall of his chest, but his breathing looks shallow, and when she presses her fingers to the pulse point in his neck, it feels like it's going a million beats per minute.

Beth refuses to think about what that means.

The light's no good over here, so she looks around the room, fixing on a desk lamp. She scrambles up and brings it over, plugging it in next to the couch and plonking it on the table, adjusting the shade to bounce light directly on Rio's side. Better.

She kneels down again and takes a deep breath.  _ Here it goes. _

As gently as she can, while still moving quickly, Beth wrestles off his coat and unbuttons his shirt. She doesn't bother trying to get it all the way off, just pulls it open, carefully peeling it away from his side where the blood is already congealing to glue. He has a t-shirt on underneath, and she whispers  _ sorry _ as she snatches the scissors and cuts it open enough to push it out of her way. 

She tries not to think too hard about how much cooler his skin is than- than the last time she'd touched it.

There's a bad moment when she sees the three scars marring his torso.

_ Lung. Spleen. Shoulder.  _

Her hands are shaking as she twists off the cap of the water bottle. She hears Rio in her head, voice demanding like it was in the car-  _ when he was shot, and she didn't  _ know _ - _ telling her to breathe in and out, and she does her best to follow his instructions while she dumps water over the wound.

The water washes away a decent amount of the blood, revealing a shockingly neat little hole, and she can't believe something, so innocuous-looking can cause so much damage.

She stops a dim bell ringing in the back of her head. What if the bullet's still in there? Oh god, what's she going to do then? She doesn't- she can't- 

Beth's chest goes tight, and her vision goes blurry, and the room spins for a second. 

_ Focus. _

She wedges her hands under him and lifts him up slightly, wiggling around and trying to get an angle where she can see his back when he's dead weight and she can only lift him so much. 

Her breath gusts out when she sees the bloody wound in Rio's back. The shot went clean through, and she's watched enough TV to know that's a good thing. She tries to eyeball the angle, shuddering when her brain reminds her that she's trying to figure out the trajectory of a bullet that  _ went through his torso, _ and recall the human anatomy class she took eons ago in her aborted stint at college. 

Beth's pretty sure both wounds are close enough to his side that they'd missed anything vital. God, she hopes she’s right.

_ Snap out of it, Beth, he's still bleeding. _

She sets Rio back down, hoping the combination of his weight and the couch cushion will serve as enough pressure to staunch some of the bleeding while she deals with the wound on his stomach.

She dumps more water over him before grabbing the tweezers, bending down close to see if there's anything that needs to be cleaned out. From what she can see, it looks pretty clear, and she's nearly dizzy with gratitude that she can skip this step.

Beth pulls out what feels like close to all of the dental floss, ripping it off and holding it with her teeth as she snips off a length of gauze, wadding it up and dumping peroxide all over it. Then she runs the floss through the damp cloth once, twice, three times before deciding it's sterile enough. She wipes down a corner of the table with gauze before setting the floss down. Her hands shake when she rips open the sewing kit, and everything comes tumbling out, scattering on the carpet. She fumbles for a needle, finding it when it sticks in her finger while she runs her fingers over the ground, then grabs the lighter, holding the needle in the flame until her fingertips burn.

It takes her probably five tries to thread the needle. By the time Beth finally gets the floss to go through, her breathing sounds more like sobbing. 

_ Okay. _

She takes a deep, steadying breath, wishing the grocery store had sold booze because she could really, really use a drink right now. She bends over Rio's terrifyingly still body, pausing to reassure herself he's still breathing, and then pinches the sides of the hole together.

Telling herself this is really no different than the chicken breasts she'd practiced on-  _ total bullshit, this is nothing like that- _ Beth starts to sew.

The wound is so small-  _ how _ is it so  _ small- _ that it only takes a few sutures before she's tying off the floss. She wipes the whole thing down with another peroxided fistful of gauze and then carefully tapes down the edges of a clean, dry, folded up strip with a handful of the neon green dinosaur band-aids she'd grabbed out of habit. 

Rio stayed out the whole time and Beth’s grateful for it. She can’t imagine how much worse it would’ve been if he were awake, in pain and still managing to criticize every move she made. She studies him, mentally noting that the bleeding has slowed down and his breathing hasn't gotten any shallower. She's pretty sure that means he isn't getting any worse, which is comforting.

That is, until she realizes she needs to figure out how to roll him over.

It's an awkward and graceless process. He's dead weight at this point, but she manages to get him turned over, only to realize after she's done that the new position has put the side of his back with the gunshot over against the back of the couch. For a long moment, everything feels laughably, impossibly undoable, but that's not an option, so she shoves the coffee table up against the couch and wedges herself between him and the back of the couch, so she can maneuver him halfway onto it. She makes just enough space that she can crouch over him and get close enough to the gash on his back to work. 

When she's done, and she's stitched and bandaged his back in the same vein as the front, she checks his breathing again and swears it's deeper this time, more like he's sleeping, and she thinks his pulse has slowed down too.

She leaves him lying on his stomach half on the couch, half on the table. It looks ridiculous and uncomfortable, and she hates it, but her arms feel like noodles, and it's all of a sudden really, really hard to stay standing, so she's not confident in her ability to get him all the way on the couch without doing more damage.

She can't stop herself from staggering as she cleans up the assorted debris. Her stomach feels like a washing machine on high, and she keeps gasping a little, unable to take a full breath. After she's stashed everything away, she lurches into the shower, leaving a trail of clothes behind her. 

She knows she rips out some of her hair while trying to get the blood out of it and does some damage to her hands, furiously scrubbing at the blood coating them. She frantically scrapes dried blood out from every crevice until her knuckles bright red, and sure enough, she sees a few pinpricks of fresh blood dotted across the backs of her hands when she sticks them out of the spray.

Dimly, Beth realizes she's probably in shock, but she's not sure what she's supposed to do about it besides deal with it and keep moving. 

She's on the floor of the shower before she fully processes she’s sat down, and something is rising in her chest. It's vast and burning and getting bigger and thicker and sharper as it rises, and she's trying her best to stop it, force it back down, but it's bigger than her and pays her no mind. Then there's this guttural, animal noise that must have come from her because there's no one else here. She lets out a sob so hard she convulses, laying down on her side on the tile.

He got _shot._

He might be  _ dying. _

_ No. _

The denial hits her with such sudden, thunderous clarity, it unearths every thought and feeling she's buried all the way down underneath the suffocating weight of his hatred: the numbness leftover from mentally cauterizing her guilt; the constant, unrelenting cocktail of terror and adrenaline she'd been riding since he came back. It's all suddenly thrown into sharp relief.

There's something unfamiliar bubbling to the surface, riding the wake of the tidal wave of fear and grief crashing over her. It's something that's been festering deep inside her, in the darkest parts of her that she doesn't like to look at, since that night in his loft. Something she's done everything in her power not to touch, not to think about, not to even acknowledge because she knows it's bad, wrong, horrible, and not a part of who she's supposed to be.

Rio hates her, is hell-bent on revenge. He's a killer who will turn on her the second she gives him an opening. Feeling anything for him at all is the purest, most distilled concentration of her worst, most off-base survival instincts. If she had any sense of self-preservation at all, she'd be grabbing her bag, her passport, his keys, and getting as far away from here as she could. And that's not even getting into what it says about her as a person—that she can still care about him after everything he's done. To  _ her. _

And yet, when it's all scraped away, and Beth gets right down to the bedrock, the only thing left is a set of cold, hard truths: that she bitterly regrets that night in the loft, that a part of herself she was only just getting to know had gone missing that night, that same part came rushing back in a watershed of horrible, glorious relief when he returned to her in that bar. A part that sang out a broken, discordant, awful song every time she'd seen him since then. A part that had started screaming, wailing, howling since the moment she'd realized he'd been shot.

And Beth knows with a crystalline clarity that settles into her bones: she can't lose him again.

It's enormously stupid, she knows. Beyond that, it's a betrayal. Of herself, her values, her friends, her family.

And yet.

She can never tell him that. She doesn’t even want to know that. 

Beth lies there, rolling over and pressing her forehead into the cool tile, hiccuping a little as the sobs subside. Water rains down around her, washing away the tears she's only just realizing have been pouring down her face, absorbing the weight of the knowledge that's crashed down on her, marveling how something can feel so heavy and yet set her so free at the same time.

After a long moment, the weight disperses throughout her enough that it's manageable, and she can practically feel her brain stutter back into gear.

Eventually, they're going to have to leave this room. If-  _ when _ Rio wakes up, he'll need a new shirt, since between her and the bullet, both shirts and his coat are ruined. She remembers seeing a little convenience store in the corner of the lobby and wonders if it sells shirts. He's going to need something to change into if-  _ when _ he wakes up.

She hauls herself up and out of the shower, toweling off and inspecting her discarded clothes. The jeans are passable, the few smears of blood blend into their dark wash enough. Her shirt's a total loss, dark red already browning all over it, but she can just button up her coat.

Beth dresses quickly, pausing for a moment to splash some cold water on her face and pinch some color back into her cheeks. She's so pale, she's nearly gray as if she was the one with traumatic blood loss.

When Beth comes out, she grabs her coat, taking three tries to button it up properly and checks on Rio. He's warmer, and his breathing is still slow and even. Beth figures that's the best she can hope for, and she's better off running to the lobby while he sleeps, rather than sitting around alone with her thoughts.

The lobby has the same disorienting effect as the grocery store, like something’s wrong with it around the edges, but she can’t quite pinpoint what it is when she looks at it head on. She hurries over to the little store in the corner, loading herself up with all of the orange juice in the fridge, and some of the cranberry juice for good measure, and more or less throws some cash at the kid behind the lobby counter. He’s wised up and doesn’t even look up from his phone, just stuffs the bills she leaves in his pocket.

When Beth gets back to the room, Rio hasn’t moved, but he’s still breathing steadily, and something wound tight since the moment she set foot in the hallway relaxes a little.

Beth putters around, putting the juice in the mini fridge, changing into one of the t-shirts she grabbed. One has an illustration of a bear in sunglasses—what that has to do with Toronto she has no idea—and one has a cartoon heart, peace sign, and maple leaf. She takes the peace and love, figuring he’ll hate them both, but that one might make him actively homicidal. 

She spends far longer than necessary neatly folding her coat and when she’s done, she looks around for something, anything to do. The room offers her nothing. The thought of turning on the tv, disrupting their cocoon with bright lights and loud sound, feels vulgar for reasons she can’t explain.

So, at a loss, she sits down on the floor across from the couch, leaning back against the wall and hugging her legs into herself—a move she knows she’ll deeply regret in about 45 minutes, when every muscle in her body’s locked tight and aching.

Then Beth rests her chin on her knees and settles in to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, you can also find me crying in my tags on [tumblr](https://mego42.tumblr.com/).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Get your shit," he says, still not looking at her. "We gotta go."
> 
> Beth's jaw drops. "You cannot be serious."
> 
> Now Rio looks down at her, turning the full force of his fury in her direction. Beth can't wrap her head around the idea of having the energy to be as mad as he is right now. It's rippling off of him like heat waves off of concrete. She doesn't even know what set him off. Maybe the dinosaur bandaids? The t-shirt?
> 
> "Oh, I'm sorry, what part of that made you think I ain't serious?" he says, the mocking pout offset by burning eyes. "Was it the part where I told you to get your shit? Or the part where we gotta go? 
> 
> His lip curls, "Or maybe the part where I told you to keep your fucking mouth shut? Let me know where I lost you, yeah?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As established by canon, gunshot wounds are trivial things anyone can recover from nearly instantaneously. I did not make these rules, I am just playing by them. 
> 
> Once again, you guys owe this chapter to [nickmillerscaulk](https://nickmillerscaulk.tumblr.com/), I am so unspeakably glad I made myself post that plea for a beta. She is a delight and a genius at picking out the things that aren’t working and rearranging them to fit. I promise I will learn how dashes and commas work one day so she can rest. 
> 
> Also, forever calling angst the ouch david! factor in her honor from here on out.

Beth doesn't know how long she sits there on the floor. After a while, she settles into a semi-conscious, meditative state. She absorbs the quiet hum of the air conditioner, the faint, overly bleached smell of the carpet, the subtle ivy pattern in the ivory wallpaper all blurring together, and washing over her. Every now and then, she hears the soft sounds of other people moving around in the hallway. The occasional proof of life tethers her, but never quite penetrates.

The bulk of her attention—if whatever wee hour of the morning fog coating her brain can be called attention—stays focused on the steady rise and fall of Rio's back to the point that her eyes burn and vision goes hazy.

When Rio stirs, Beth's so deep in her vigil she doesn't even move, just watches him come back to himself piece by piece. 

It feels like she's getting away with something, getting to watch him so unguarded like this.

His head's turned towards her so she can see his eyelashes flutter—she's had enough time to study them that she feels intimately acquainted with the exact way they fan across the very top of his cheekbones. Then he jerks a little like he's absorbed the tactile sensation of lying on half upholstery, half pine veneer, and it doesn't make any sense to him, which is fair. He tries to push himself up, and groans, the sound hoarse and rusty, as the movement pulls at his stitches.

"Careful," she says, her own voice rusty from disuse. 

Rio's eyes snap to hers, and for a long moment, neither of them moves. Something unreadable washes over his face, and Beth has no idea what he can read in hers, she just knows she feels scraped raw and anything could have been exposed.

But then his expression slams shut like hurricane shutters locking into place to hold back a storm, and he pushes himself up, shoving the table away. He doesn't allow himself so much as a wince, even though Beth knows moving all at once like that has to hurt like hell. 

Rio staggers to the bathroom, and Beth waits. She doesn't think she's capable of moving even if she wanted to. Either way, it'll take him a while to wash all the blood off of his hands—especially now that it's dried.

When he comes back out, his hands are clean, and she can see water droplets sparkling in the short, spiky ends of his hair. It's pretty. 

Beth needs to sleep before she entirely loses her head.

Without looking at her, Rio heads straight to the table where Beth had piled his coat and the folded t-shirt. He shakes out the shirt, lip curling when he sees the picture but doesn't say anything, just pulls it on with a pained gasp. 

"Get your shit," he says, still not looking at her. "We gotta go."

Beth's jaw drops. "You cannot be serious."

Now Rio looks down at her, turning the full force of his fury in her direction. Beth can't wrap her head around the idea of having the energy to be as mad as he is right now. It's rippling off of him like heat waves off of concrete. She doesn't even know what set him off. Maybe the dinosaur bandaids? The t-shirt?

"Oh, I'm sorry, what part of that made you think I ain't serious?" he says, the mocking pout offset by burning eyes. "Was it the part where I told you to get your shit? Or the part where we gotta go? 

His lip curls, "Or maybe the part where I told you to keep your fucking mouth shut? Let me know where I lost you, yeah?"

"I- You-" Beth's lagging, she knows she is, but she cannot get her brain to work fast enough to keep up with his anger.

"You, me, whatever," Rio turns away from her. "Get your ass up and get your shit."

Beth struggles to her feet, not because she has any intention of leaving right now—it’s an absolutely insane demand—but because she doesn't want to have this fight with him looking down on her. Her back burns white-hot, it's so locked up from sitting on the floor for so long, and her knees pop, nearly giving out for a second, but she makes it up. 

"We're not going anywhere right now."

"Oh yeah, why's that?" Rio still has his back to her, rummaging in his coat pockets for his gun, his phone, his money—the things that matter to him.

"Who's going to drive?" Beth says to his back, flinging her hands up in exasperation. "I'm more likely to drive us into a tree than back to Detroit right now, and you're recovering from major traumatic blood loss!"

He snorts, "And whose fault is that?"

Beth sputters, "That is not on me!"

Rio turns at that, cocking his head and furrowing his brow like he's confused, "Who's it on then?"

"The person that shot you!" Beth flails around the room like Mia's going to appear so Beth can point to her. 

"You forget that'd indirectly be _you?_ "

It hits Beth like a blow to the chest because it's true, even if it's not true this time. And it's just—it's one thing too many, and she shorts out, entirely losing the will to fight.

This night has easily lasted an entire lifetime. She'd been tired enough when he'd first shown up in her kitchen, she'd run through her emergency reserves hours ago—probably somewhere around when she was finishing stitching up his back. She's _exhausted_ in a way she hasn't been since those first few delirious days after she'd brought Danny home from the hospital, and both Dean and Kenny had caught the flu at the same time. 

"Fine." 

Rio eyes her warily, the sudden capitulation clearly throwing him off guard.

"You're right." Alarm flashes across his face before he can hide it, and under any other circumstance, Beth would've laughed out loud. "You told me, and I didn't listen, and I'm sorry. But that doesn't change the fact that neither of us is in any condition to drive right now."

Beth turns away from him and staggers towards the still pristine bed on the other side of the half-wall dividing the suite in two. "If you have to go, fine. Go, find a ride, call one of your boys. But I'm done. I have nothing left."

Without turning to see how that lands and entirely past caring, Beth toes out of her shoes and drops down on the closest side of the bed. She has the passing thought that she'd be more comfortable if she took her jeans off too—what the hell, it's not like it's anything he hasn't seen—but then her head hits the pillow, and she's out.

***

Beth's in the loft, but she can also hear trees rustling in the breeze that brushes against her face and twists in her hair. Moonlight beams through the windows, illuminating how empty the room is except for Rio, lying on his back on the floor. He's still and pale, and Beth can see his shirt is dark and wet with blood. Then there's a horrible gasping, choking sound and Beth realizes it's her and she's choking on nothing, and everything smells dry and musty, and she claws at her throat, but there's nothing there, and there's no air, and she can't _breathe-_

Beth snaps awake, flying upward, knocking away the hand Rio'd been reaching towards her, and clawing at her throat.

Her chest heaves as she gasps, furiously sucking air into her lungs. 

For a long moment, Beth just breathes, trying to calm her racing heart and reorient herself. She slept long enough that the pale dawn light coming in around the edges of the curtains when she'd gone to sleep had turned to full sun. 

That's—Beth needs her phone. Ruby and Annie will have definitely noticed she's gone by now. 

Out of habit, Beth looks to the bedside table before remembering nothing about last night followed any kind of familiar routine. Before she can get too deep into that train of thought, her phone lands on the bed next to her. 

Beth's head shoots up to see Rio leaning against the partition, and she frowns because she swears he was closer when she woke up, but that might've still been the dream. Nightmare. 

"You need to call your girls," he says while she studies him. He's still a little pale but nothing like last night, and she can see empty orange juice bottles neatly stacked on the dinette table in the other room. "They been hittin' you up non-stop."

On cue, her phone lights up. It's Ruby, thank god. Beth's not sure she's ready for Annie right now. She declines the FaceTime request—there's too much she can't explain that video will reveal—and calls her back. 

_"Where are you?"_ Ruby demands, picking up before the first ring could end. 

"I'm fine," Beth assures her, tracing patterns in the bedspread and not looking at Rio. 

_"That doesn't answer my question."_

"It's a long story. I'll tell you when I get home."

 _"When will that be?"_ Distress raises Ruby's voice a full octave. 

"Um—" Beth looks at her phone, 10:45. Oh hell, she didn't mean to sleep so late. "This afternoon. Around 2 or 3?"

Rio makes a noise in the back of his throat, and now Beth looks at him. He shakes his head slightly. 

"Maybe later? Definitely before 5." Beth can see the muscle in Rio's jaw jump when she throws down that gauntlet.

 _"What? Where_ are _you? Are you_ okay?" 

"I'm fine, I promise," she says, still looking at Rio. His face is blank, giving her nothing. "Can you call Annie for me?"

_"Yes, but I, Beth—"_

"Hate you," Beth says, cutting her off. 

There's a long pause, _"Hate your face."_

Beth hangs up and lets the phone drop to the bed, more grateful for Ruby—for having someone entirely in her corner, no questions asked—than she can express. 

She looks at Rio, and he looks back, eyes dark and closed off. She swallows hard, unsure of the rules between them right now. 

"How's—" Her voice fails her, so she gestures at his side. 

"It'll do," he sucks his teeth and rocks his jaw, studying her. 

Beth's abruptly aware that she's freshly awake with sand in her eyes, a furry taste in her mouth, and an ache in her side where the underwire of her bra has been pressed into her ribs for hours. God only knows what her hair's doing, it'd still been damp when she fell into bed, and that's never led to anything good. 

She's also aware that these are all the last things she should be worried about right now, but they feel safer than anything else.

Beth pushes herself off the bed, unable to handle being so rumpled in the face of his composure for another second. Also, she has to pee. If he's going to yell at her, shoot her, kill her, whatever he's been planning while she slept, it'll have to wait. 

She shuffles towards the bathroom, pausing as she passes Rio, fingers twitching to reach for him, to check the stitches, but he takes a smooth step back and away from her. 

When she gets to the bathroom, she locks the door. Not because she thinks Rio will come barging in—though he might, his definition of boundaries seems entirely fluid based on what suits him in a given moment—but because she needs that extra barrier between them while she pulls herself together. 

Everything from last night is still there, but it feels more manageable now. Like she can hold it at arm's length and look at it, and then stow it away where no one else ever has to know it's there. 

Where no one can use it to hurt her.

After she finishes her business, she scrubs at her teeth with her finger, figuring it's better than nothing and swishes some water around in her mouth to clear the muddy, sticky taste that fear, stress, and exhaustion have left behind. She makes a half-hearted attempt to finger comb her hair before giving up and tying it up in a ponytail with the band she habitually keeps in the front pocket of her jeans.

Going through the motions of cleaning herself up helps clear her head. So what if she doesn't know the rules between them? When has she ever? She just needs to get through whatever comes next and get home. 

Back in the suite, Rio's sitting at the table. He'd found a phone charger somewhere—Beth wonders if he had one in the car or if he charmed that poor kid at the desk into giving him one—and is furiously typing away, ignoring Beth. 

She heads to the tiny kitchen and starts a pot of coffee, more for something to do than anything else. Once she sets it to brew and turns around, Rio has put his phone down and is waiting for her. Beth swallows hard, crossing her arms and leaning back on the counter behind her. 

They stare at each other across the table, his jaw working furiously and Beth biting her tongue. She's not going to be the one to break. If he wants to hash this out, he needs to start it. He's the one that dragged her into this.

The air between them simmers, and Beth can hear kids running down the hall past the door, yelling something about a pool. 

The coffee pot gurgles as the drip cuts off.

Beth breaks.

"She called me a bitch."

"So?" He's incredulous, like he'd been expecting her to start with something better than _that._ "Since when does that bother you?"

 _When it's not you._ But that's not something Beth can say to him, not something she even likes acknowledging to herself—how she'll let him talk to her just because it means he's talking to her. It's different with him, anyway. With him, it doesn't feel like an insult, it’s just another word. Sometimes it makes her feel powerful. 

Then she remembers how he hurled it at her that night in the loft. Sometimes it hurts when it's him, too. 

"I don't like her." 

Rio raises his eyebrows, disgust plain as day on his face, "So, I got shot because you're jealous?"

"No!" Beth winces, it came out shrill and entirely unconvincing, and from the smug twist of his lips, Rio caught that too. 

"She wants to _franchise_ me," Beth tries again. "Whatever that means."

Rio laughs once, short and sharp, "Nothin' good."

"Who is she, anyway? An ex-girlfriend?" Beth can't stop the last part from slipping out. 

"It's complicated," Rio says with a shrug. The non-answer sends a shard of something straight through Beth's heart.

"Is she—" Beth knows she's definitely not helping the whole not jealous thing, but she can't stop herself, "Is she your—your current girlfriend?"

Now he smiles wide, serrated and nasty. "Why? That bother you?"

Beth will never give him the satisfaction of admitting it. "It bothers me that you never _tell me_ anything." 

"Why would I tell you shit?" He leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his arms. He frowns at her like she's a child who can't grasp a simple concept, "You never fuckin' listen."

"That's not fair!"

"Nothing's fair, sweetheart." He cocks his head, mockery sliding away and something real taking its place, "You still tryin' to play by playground rules darlin', and that ship sailed so long ago it's miles past the horizon."

"What do you want from me?" Beth cries, frustrated. "I'm back where you want me, making your money. Why can't that be enough?"

There's that short, sharp laugh again. "Are you fuckin' serious? You really think your debt's paid that easy?"

Is she serious? Is _he_ serious? What more does he want? Does he really not see what kind of an impossible position he'd put her in? After he _kidnapped_ her? Kidnapped a _goddamn FBI agent?_ After—

"You _left_ me," she spits, not knowing that's what was going to come out. 

"You _shot_ me," he snarls back. 

"I _know._ " It's torn out of her, raw and ragged. "Do you think I don't _know that?_ "

"I think you don't _care."_ Rio stops, obviously not intending to have said that and shocked that he did. 

The enormity of what he doesn't know, doesn't understand, washes over Beth. She can't ever tell him, she can't ever give him that kind of power over her. 

"That's not—that's not true." It comes out weak, and she winces. She wouldn't believe her if she were him and from the look on his face, he doesn't. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, you sad you finally got those pretty li'l hands of yours dirty?" The mockery in Rio's voice pushes her over the edge. 

"They didn't have to be! I handled it! It was _over!"_

He scoffs, but Beth doesn't let it deter her. She's been holding all of this back too long, and now that she's broken the seal, there's no stopping it. 

"You told him about _Jeff_ ." Her breath hitches and comes out more like a sob. "You didn't have to _do_ that. You didn't have to do _any_ of that."

Her throat closes up, remembering how she felt in that room when he pulled the bag off her head, and she saw it was him. Understood that he'd disappeared on her, made it clear she was just business, removed himself nearly all the way out of her life to the point of clearing out his goddamn apartment, only to kidnap her in the middle of the night from her _own house._

Betrayal washes over her as fresh and acidic as if she were still there, as if that night never ended. 

In a way it hasn't, she re-lives it every time she falls asleep. 

"You left me, and then you kidnapped me, and then you put that gun in my hand and came at me." Beth's voice is thick, and she can feel tears prickling at the corners of her eyes, "What did you _think_ was going to happen?"

"I didn't think you'd turn it on _me."_ The force of that last word steals the breath from Beth’s lungs. "All of those times I told you to handle it, all of those times you couldn't do it—the time you finally could was _me?_ "

Rio stops, snapping his mouth shut. The betrayal fueling his anger is so evident in his tone, he doesn't have to say anything for her to hear it, for her to feel it.

His jaw works furiously, and she can see him weighing whether to let it out or to shut it down—can see the moment he snaps and lets go. He shoves up out of the chair, coming towards her, his fury wrapped around him like a shroud.

"You want me to buy that you feel bad? That you didn't mean it? Nah." He thumps a fist against his stomach, his shoulder, his heart. "Three times. Three slugs. Three shots. You kept shooting. The way I see it, that means you meant it."

"You left me _no choice!"_ She meets him halfway, getting up in his face for once. Without her heels, he's got more than a few inches on her, but her anger makes her feel taller. 

"You _always_ had a _choice!"_

" _When?_ " Beth doesn't even recognize her own voice, she's never heard it so raw, so twisted, so desperate. 

"When _you_ left your pearls on that door. When _you_ asked for half. When _you_ asked me to help. _You_ put yourself in this."

"Fine! Let's go with your version. You're the one that's been telling me if I want to play, I have to play on your level," she says, drilling a finger into his chest, knocking him back a step.

"You're the one that gave me your gun and dared me to shoot you that night all the way back in my dining room. You're the one that told me I had to kill Boomer, that I had to _handle_ my rotten egg. You _gave me the gun._ " With each point, she drives her finger into his chest, until finally he grabs her wrist, holding her still, but she's too far gone to stop. 

"So I did it, I did what you'd been telling me to. I played the game on your level. It's on me, but it's also on you. You thought I could be something, right? Well, this is that something. The _bitch_ you trained bit back." 

On the last word, she yanks out of his grip, distantly surprised that he lets her.

"Yeah, there it is." He's furious, but that spark is back, the part of him that lights up when she pushes back. She hates how even now—even with all of this between them—there's a part of her that's relieved to know that spark between them isn't gone; a part of her that lights up in response.

"There _what_ is? " She hates the edge of hysteria in her voice, she hates that he can unravel her like this.

"You. The _real_ you." The derision practically drips off his tone. "The one that can't own a single fuckin' choice she makes."

The absolute unfairness of that statement hits Beth so hard, she swears for a moment she leaves her body. "You think I don't own this? That I don't _care?_ That I don't have nightmares _every goddamn night?"_

He jerks back, clearly not expecting that. 

"I haven't had a full night's sleep since before that night. It's all that's there when I close my eyes." She wipes furiously at her cheek, hating herself for letting a single tear fall. 

"But I'm not the only one there. You're there too. Not just—not just like that. You're there because you dragged me there. You put a bag over my head and _kidnapped me!_ "

Discomfort flashes across his face so fast she barely catches it. 

"You don't get to put this on me," he says stiffly.

"No?" Gaining the upper hand, even if it's only for a moment, makes Beth bold. "What about all the times you were going to kill me? Do I get to put those on you?"

"That ain't the same thing."

"Why not?"

"Because I didn't _pull the trigger!_ "

Beth hasn't seen Rio lose his temper like this since the night in the alley when he'd forced her to confront the fact that she was a drug dealer. The force of his anger stops her in her tracks for a moment before another wave of outrage pulls her under. 

"That doesn't change the fact that you _would have!_ That you _planned_ to! You've been telling me you're going to kill me _since the day we met!_ " 

Rio doesn't have an answer to that, which is enough of an answer in and of itself. 

Beth sags back, finally spent and so, so weary. The kind of weary that lives in her bones and weighs down her soul. 

"I'm so tired of being afraid of you." The words come out with a resigned sigh.

Now that the anger is ebbing, there's an overwhelming sense of relief to finally get this, _any_ of this, off her chest. Beth loves Ruby and Annie so much that she would die for them, and nearly has, but there's so much she can't tell them. So much that would change the way they look at her, more than they already have. 

And isn't that part of what’s always made being around Rio so intoxicating? There’s no corner of her she can't show him, no secret too dark. If anything, he revels in the darkest parts of her and rejects the shiny surface bits she holds up to everyone else. Or at least, he used to.

She never has to pretend with him. To protect herself, absolutely, but never pretend to be someone she's not. 

When she meets his eyes, he's looking down at her with that same naked, complicated expression she saw that day in the clinic. Like the sheer force of everything he's feeling all at once is too much for him to hold it back.

Beth gets it. She doesn't know if it's possible for her to feel more defenseless than she does at this moment and she hopes, prays with everything she has, that he won't strike, because she doesn't think she'll be able to come back from it if he's cruel to her right now. 

Rio steps back.

Her breath gusts out, leaving her dizzy with relief. 

He swallows hard, and she watches him pull away to slide his mask back into place.

"Grab your shit," he says, voice rough but steady. "We gotta go."

Beth nods, not trusting herself to speak around the lump in her throat. She goes to grab her bag.

***

The ride home is simultaneously a lot less and a lot more awkward than Beth was expecting. 

To her absolute shock, Rio doesn't fight her when she insists on driving, just slides into the passenger seat and pulls out his phone, proceeding to text for the remainder of the journey. He pauses long enough to toss her their passports when they get to the border crossing. The border officer barely gives them a second look before he waves them through, and Beth's not sure how to take that—what made her so much more suspicious when she was with Ruby and Annie. 

Other than that one little interaction, Rio completely ignores her the entire way back to Detroit.

It's—well, it's weird after the fight they just had, but Beth doesn't have the energy or inclination to poke at that freshly reopened wound right now. 

When they get close to downtown, Rio puts his phone away and directs her to the same bar Mick had taken Beth to the other night. When she pulls up in front, Mick's there waiting, and Rio's out of the car and walking into the bar almost before she's fully parked.

She gets out, hesitating a little on the curb, unsure whether she wants to follow him or not, but before she can decide, Mick's taking the keys from her and pointing her towards his car parked down the block.

"We're going this way, Mrs. Boland," Mick says, soft and sure like it's a foregone conclusion that she'll go with him. Beth frowns; now that the choice has been taken away, she wishes she'd followed Rio. She doesn't know...anything, actually—what she's supposed to do, what happens next, where they stand, who Mia is, what happened to the rest of Rio's crew, if Beth should be worried, if she's supposed to be making money for Mia, any of it. She assumes no to the last one, given how the meeting turned out and says as much to Mick.

"Bossman will tell you the way," is all he says, which is infuriatingly vague, but she can't get anything else out of him. He just keeps steadily herding her towards his car until her only choices are to go along with it or throw an obvious fit in the middle of the street.

When they pull up in front of her house, Beth assumes Mick will park and resume watchman duty, but he just idles at the curb and speeds off when she hops out. 

Beth doesn't know how she feels about that, to be honest. She hated him watching her, but now she feels untethered from—everything, in a way she finds she hates just as much.

Before she makes it all the way up the walk, Ruby opens the front door, and Beth can see Annie just behind her, face pale and drawn, eyes huge and swimming. She breaks into a run, hurrying towards them. Whatever they see on her face has them holding out their arms, until they're gathering her up and pulling her inside. 

***

"So, wait, let me get this straight," Annie says, cracking open a second bottle of wine and topping off her glass, then offering the bottle to Ruby next to her on the couch. 

"Gang nemesis took you to meet his _girlfriend?"_ Annie takes a sip, frowning a little. "That's somehow so cold and so lame at the same time."

"I don't know if she's his girlfriend," Beth says from where she's lying on the floor in front of the fireplace, waving her glass in Ruby's general direction. Ruby obliges and fills it up. "But she definitely... _knew_ him."

"So, what was she like?" Annie asks. "Between you and parking lot girl—"

"Annie!" Ruby hisses as Beth frowns and swirls her wine around. She should've pulled out the liquor for this. 

"What? I'm just saying, gang nemesis clearly does not have a type, so I'm curious!"

There's a beat of silence, and when Beth sits up to take a sip of her wine, they're both staring at her. 

"Um, I don't know, you guys. It happened fast," Beth says, remembering the way Mia laughed at her, the way she moved, the way she touched Rio and how she hadn't batted an eye when he shot her back up. "She's not very nice."

Ruby snorts into her wine as Annie says, "Yeah, that checks out."

Beth frowns, bizarrely compelled to defend Rio. 

"Really smart, it seemed like. Pretty. Maybe kind of crazy. Handsy." She gulps down some more wine. "Even if she isn't his girlfriend, they definitely know each other really well." 

Ruby and Annie are staring at her again. 

" _What?_ " Beth asks.

"You're not like, jealous, are you?" Annie asks, and Beth really hates the underlying thread of judgment in her tone. As though Annie has any room to judge Beth for anything. 

"No! Of course not!" Beth's really proud of how even it comes out.

Annie nods, satisfied. Ruby's still staring, though, and Beth can't meet her eye, so she takes another gulp of wine instead. 

"Right then," Annie says, finishing her wine and standing, heading towards the hall. "Gotta drop a deuce. Your bathroom still cool?"

"Ew, Annie. Yes! Fine!" Beth waves her off, setting her wine on the table and laying back down. 

After Annie leaves, Ruby waits a minute and then slides off of the couch, scooting across the floor closer to Beth. "Okay, now tell me the rest of it."

"The rest of what?"

"I know you think you contain all of this, but I know you. I know when there's stuff you're not telling me. I leave it alone because I know you'll tell me when you're ready, and if you don't, it's not my business. But I'm worried about you, babe. You're in over your head."

Beth stares us at the ceiling, trying to sort out what she wants to say. 

"It's okay if you're jealous." The way Ruby says it is so soft and so kind that it brings an instantaneous lump to Beth's throat. "You're allowed to feel something for him."

Beth inhales sharply, not prepared for the maelstrom of emotion Ruby's quiet understanding sets off. "I'm not—"

"Please. Between you, Stan, and Li'l Miss Impulse Control back there," Ruby gestures toward Beth's bedroom, "if we ever actually started a regular poker game, I would clean _up_."

They're quiet for a moment, Beth trying to collect herself and Ruby waiting. 

"I shouldn't—" Beth tries, breaking off when her voice falters. She swallows and tries again. "What does it say about me that he can do everything that he's done to me, and it's not—I still—" 

The lump in her throat is getting bigger and harder to talk around. "I can't..."

"You told me once that you've never looked at Dean the way I look at Stan," Ruby says, pouring them both more wine. "Well, I've never seen you look at anyone the way you look at _him_."

Beth closes her eyes, she's run out of energy to fight that particular truth. "But, how is that—after everything—"

"But nothing, babe." Ruby looks down at her, "Those feelings don't just go away because you've added more on top."

Beth doesn't say anything—what is there to say? It's not like Ruby's wrong—just sits up and gulps down the wine. 

“Besides, it’s not like you’re alone in this,” Ruby continues and Beth chokes on her wine.

“He’s not—it’s not like that for him.” 

“Are you serious?” Ruby asks, incredulous. “Like, are you actually serious right now?”

“What?” 

“It’s not like that? B, I love you, but you have to know that by his rules, by all rights, you should have been dead over a year ago.”

Beth blinks at Ruby, not sure what to say to that. It’s true, but Ruby says it like it means something Beth knows it doesn’t. 

"Don't get me wrong, I think getting involved with him is a terrible idea, and I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't tell you that," Ruby says, pointing her glass at Beth. "But you're my ride or die. Wherever you go, I'm with you."

Beth feels that telltale prickle at the corner of her eyes and smiles at Ruby—a wobbly little thing, but the wobble doesn't make it any less genuine—tapping their glasses together. "Hate you."

Ruby smiles back. "Hate your face."

They both take a deep drink and sit in silence for a moment. 

"So, when you say handsy, are we talking light arm touches or full-on, up in his space—"

"Aarrghh!" Beth drops back down on her back with a groan, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes like she can press the mental image of Mia dancing up to Rio and touching his chest—Rio playing with her hair—out of her brain with force. 

"What'd I miss?" Annie says, walking back into the room. 

"I'm trying to get a better definition of handsy."

"Good woman," Annie says, dropping onto the couch and tossing something onto the table. "Looks like Deansy left you a present, sis. But back to the more important questions, was it more—"

Beth sits up, confused. That does not sound like Dean. And she's not sure where he would've left something that she wouldn't have seen already. Despite his version of events, he's always been horrible at clever hiding places.

There's a small, gift-wrapped box sitting on the table. The kind of gift-wrap that says exclusive, high-end, luxury boutique. 

It definitely doesn't look like a Dean present either.

"—like a cat in heat?" 

"Annie!" Beth missed most of what she'd said, but Ruby's horror makes her think that's probably a good thing.

"What? I'm just asking—"

"Where'd you find this?" Beth interrupts. 

"He left it on your bed. Oh gross, is it going to be underwear? Ew, Beth, no. Stop sleeping with your trash husband and divorce him already."

Beth rolls her eyes and pulls the box towards her. 

Easier said than done when you can't afford a lawyer on top of one residence, let alone two. She thinks of the signed divorce papers stashed away in her bedside table, waiting for the day they can afford to file them. The whole idea behind starting her own business was to get herself set up so she could even _think_ about taking back control of her life. One of the ideas anyway. She'd also wanted to prove—to whom was unimportant—that she could do it.

She unties the heavy, satin bow, trying not to damage the beautiful ribbon. The box itself is wrapped in of some sort of luxe, damask patterned fabric that Beth loves and definitely wants to save.

She pulls off the lid and drops the box on the table like it burned her.

It’s a bullet—sitting on a neatly folded ten-dollar bill that Beth would bet anything is one of hers. 

"Beth?"

"Babe?"

Beth can hear Ruby and Annie, sort of. She dimly registers that they sound fairly frantic, but she's so far away from them, from everything, back underwater with a rising whine in her ears, because this is from _Mia._

She knows it before she even sees the card sticking out from underneath the bill. The one she slides out to read _see you soon, moneymaker_ in elegant, delicate cursive. 

Mia left her a present. Mia knows where she lives—where her _kids live_. Mia was in her _bedroom._

"Beth? Beth, what's going on?" Annie's crouched down in front of Beth, shaking her shoulder, trying to get her to snap out of it. Ruby's sliding the little box towards her and reading the card, fear etched deep in her face.

"Beth?" Annie asks, "What do we do?"

Beth lies back down on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song inside the halls of the dark (and a few others) made [nomind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomind/pseuds/nomind) / [inyoursheets’](https://inyoursheets.tumblr.com/) incredibly awesome [Brio Fic Rec Masterpost](https://inyoursheets.tumblr.com/post/613741133046120448/brio-fic-rec-masterpost) (thank you!!!) which includes some of my absolute favs and a whole bunch of stuff I haven’t read plus the most excellent tags and commentary. If you’re looking for something to read while on quarantine/shelter in place or just, you know, in general, I highly recommend checking the list out!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After three false alarms, Beth finally pushes her way into a quiet, dimly lit bar that looks familiar enough. Then she sees the bird inked around the bartender's wrist, and knows for sure she's found the right place.
> 
> "Bourbon on the rocks," she says in response to the bartender's nod, sliding onto a stool. "And I'd like to speak to your manager."
> 
> He does a double-take, looking her up and down, and Beth keeps her head high, refusing to be made to feel like she doesn't belong. 
> 
> "Manager's not in," he says eventually. 
> 
> "When will he be back?" 
> 
> The bartender sucks on his teeth, squinting at her like he's trying to figure out her game. "Not sure. Not for a while."
> 
> "That's fine." Beth slides a book out of her purse and accepts the drink he hands her. "I'll wait."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are new here and decided to skip the first three chapters for reasons I don’t fathom but also don’t judge (whatever floats your boat), [nickmillerscaulk](https://nickmillerscaulk.tumblr.com/) is the actual best beta in the world and I am so lucky to have her working on this monster with me.

After twelve hours, thirty-seven unanswered calls, and easily twice as many unread texts—all sent to the phone number that had texted her to keep her mouth shut—Beth is forced to accept that Rio's ignoring her. 

Or maybe that's not even his number. How is Beth supposed to know? She's pretty sure she's read somewhere that you can use temporary numbers with your real phone. It would be just like him to contact her without leaving her a way to get back to him.

After setting aside her shock that Mia had been in her house—that Mia had figured out  _ where she lived _ —Beth went straight to the garage and pulled out the shotgun Dean had bought, grudgingly grateful for it, even as she hated its existence. She and Ruby and Annie spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos, learning how to load, fire, and clean it. Beth had put an end to the evening when Annie suggested taking it out to the yard to practice.

"Since when do you like guns?" Beth asked.

"I don't, but that doesn't mean I'm going to pass up the opportunity to play with one if I'm presented with it," Annie shot back. Ruby rolled her eyes behind Annie's back and poured the last of the wine.

Neither of them wanted to leave Beth, but she shooed them into Lyfts, knowing both of them had kids to get back to, and–even though it made her skin crawl–assured them that she'd sleep with the shotgun next to her. Ruby had campaigned hard for Beth to spend the night at her house, but Beth dug in and waved her off.

Beth didn't want to admit that a part of her was hoping Rio would do the thing where he showed up with no warning. She’d already called him at least ten times at that point, so it didn’t seem entirely outside the realm of possibility, unless he’d gone on vacation again. 

She finally fell asleep on the couch in the den around three in the morning—shotgun on the floor beside her—after she’d run out of steam pacing and calling and listening to the generic voicemail recording over and over. 

Rio never came.

The next day, finally acknowledging she couldn't glare her phone into ringing and officially feeling too stressed to keep stress baking, Beth decided to track him down. 

She’s pretty sure she has a general enough idea of where his new bar is located—that it won’t take her long to find it, despite not knowing the exact street. Unfortunately, it turns out Detroit has an unreasonable amount of bars in a very concentrated area, and all of them have that same old-world-industrial-but-make-it-gentrified facade. 

After three false alarms, Beth finally pushes her way into a quiet, dimly lit bar that looks familiar enough. Then she sees the bird inked around the bartender's wrist, and knows for sure she's found the right place.

"Bourbon on the rocks," she says in response to the bartender's nod, sliding onto a stool. "And I'd like to speak to your manager."

He does a double-take, looking her up and down, and Beth keeps her head high, refusing to be made to feel like she doesn't belong. 

"Manager's not in," he says eventually. 

"When will he be back?" 

The bartender sucks on his teeth, squinting at her like he's trying to figure out her game. "Not sure. Not for a while."

"That's fine." Beth slides a book out of her purse and accepts the drink he hands her. "I'll wait."

It takes four hours, but eventually Mick walks in. The bartender tilts his chin toward the corner Beth's set up shop in, and when Mick sees it's her, he stops dead in his tracks. Beth stares back, impassive and unmoving. Finally, Mick just shakes his head and pulls out his phone, heading back into the kitchen.

It takes another two hours for Rio to show up. By that time, the bar's pretty crowded. Beth's still tucked away in the back corner, but that doesn't stop his eyes from finding her immediately.

His mouth thins, and Beth's not sure what he was expecting, for her to have given up and left? 

He goes to the bar first, giving the bartender the same complicated handshake he'd given Mick and Dags—good god, was it only two nights ago? Time had long since stopped seeming like it held any meaning the further Beth fell into this world. 

Beth watches him move, looking for any hint of stiffness, infection, anything—but if she didn't know he'd been shot, hadn't stitched him up herself, she'd never know. He leans over the bar with his usual smooth grace, like nothing had ever happened at all.

When Rio eventually makes his way to her table, Beth's well and truly pissed off. She hadn't expected things to instantly get better between them—and if she had, the silent three and a half hour car ride had put that to rest—but she thought after saving his life, she might've earned more than thirty-seven missed calls, a six-hour wait, and this callous disregard. 

He slides into a chair at the table next to hers, easily within conversational distance, but separate from her. He doesn't say anything, just waits, and Beth realizes it's on her to drag anything out of him.

"I've been calling," she says, knowing it sounds prissy, but beyond caring.

"Yeah, 'bout that," Rio sniffs, surveying the room. "I blocked your number."

Beth glares at him, waiting for him to smirk, to raise an eyebrow, anything to tell her he did it to be petty, to get back at her for doing the same to him. It's awful timing, but at least she'd understand that.

He doesn't look at her, though; just keeps watching the room, disinterested. 

"Why—what—" She gives herself a mental shake. She's not going to give him the satisfaction of winning. "How does that work if I have an HR issue,  _ boss? _ "

"Nah, you don't come to me with that," he drawls. "That's Mick's department now."

"What if I need to talk to you?"

"Yeah, that’s the thing." Rio still won't look at her. "You don't."

Beth's head snaps back, and she gapes at him, waiting— _ hoping _ —he'll give her anything else. 

"Mia was in my house," she throws at him, but he doesn't do anything other than purse his lips like he's waiting for her to get to the point. "She left me a present."

Now he sighs, long and heavy. "A'ight."

Beth waits, but that's all he says. 

"That's all you have to say?  _ A'ight? _ She was in my  _ house, _ in my  _ bedroom. _ My  _ kids—" _

He locks his jaw, still not saying anything, still not looking at her. She thought his hatred was the worst thing he could offer her, but this cold, unmoving indifference is so much worse.

"How does she know where I live?" Beth spits the question out. The very least he can do is account for his role in this, because god knows  _ she _ didn’t give Mia her address.

Now he looks at her, and she sees that underneath the placid, neutral mask, his eyes are burning and furious. "I’ll handle that."

"So what do I do while you—" She deepens her voice, "—handle that?"

He doesn't acknowledge the terrible imitation. "You go home, you print, you make money." 

"That's it?"

"That's it."

It's like he's removed all of the oxygen from the room. Beth tries to inhale, but her lungs don't inflate. 

She doesn't know why she's surprised; he always leaves her when there's trouble. 

Beth stands, gathering her bag, moving slow and stiff like her bones and joints aren't quite connecting the way they're supposed to. All of a sudden, she can feel all the hours she sat waiting in that uncomfortable chair, the hours she lay on that too-small couch last night, the hours she sat on the hotel floor watching him breathe. 

"What do I do if she comes back?"

He looks back at the room and shrugs. "You’ll figure somethin’ out."

Beth laughs a single, bitter huff. 

She makes it all the way home before she realizes Mick has pulled up behind her and parked at the curb. She stands in her driveway, blinking at him, but he doesn't say anything, instead leans his seat back and settles in. 

Some of the stranglehold around her heart unclenches a little. 

***

Dean and the kids are due back any minute now, and Beth's been thinking.

It's been four days since the present arrived. The bullet, the card, and the ten are tucked away in her dresser, while the box and neatly folded ribbon are stashed in her craft table—she's not going to waste perfectly good packaging just because she's scared of it. There's been no sign of Mia since, but if anything, the utter lack makes everything all the more eerie and has given Beth a reason to keep the shotgun loaded and next to her bed.

It's been three days since she saw Rio at the bar, and she hasn't heard anything from him since. Beth gave up on bothering Mick after the first day. There was no point, he'd just sit in his car, passively vaping and waiting for her to tire herself out so he could get back to Mrs. Karpinski's  _ People _ magazine. It's an upgrade from  _ US Weekly _ , so of all of them, Beth figures Mick's coming out the most ahead. 

It’s been two days since Beth made the conscious decision that she wasn't going to stay late at the Paper Porcupine to keep printing after-hours. She told Mick it was because she didn't want to give Mia a target, but from the eye roll he couldn't entirely hide, she doesn't think either of them believed her. She still has yet to hear from upper management, though.

Last night, Beth had broken down and tried texting the number she isn't sure is Rio's again in the middle of the night. She knew it was futile as she did it—and she was right, no response—but that night in the hotel broke something loose in her, and no matter how hard she tries, she can't lock it away as tightly as it was before.

Ruby and Annie had been in and out of the house as often as they can be. They’ve swung by on their way to and from work, checking to see how Beth is holding up and occasionally force-feeding her food that hasn't come from a microwave. Though, in Annie's case, Taco Bell more or less comes from a bigger, more industrial microwave as far as Beth is concerned. Annie feels Beth is a hater. 

In between all of that and her regular daytime shifts at the Paper Porcupine, Beth's had a lot of time to think. 

The idea of Mia being in her house chills her to the core in a way Rio never has. Maybe it's the fact that Beth hadn't actually seen Mia—it’s just what she chose to leave behind that makes it feel so much more invasive and sinister. Maybe it's that Beth's never had the reaction she should to Rio, not even all the way back in the beginning. 

Either way, Beth feels violated and unsafe in her home, and the thought of her children returning makes her panic so hard, so suddenly, her vision goes spotty, and she breaks out in honest-to-god hives. 

When Dean had taken the kids away, citing fear of Rio, Beth was furious. She knew—without knowing how—that Rio would never, ever be a danger to her children. Not just because there wasn’t any money in it, but because it's a line he'd never cross. 

With Mia, Beth doesn't have that same surety. 

It's the thought that kept her awake at night, a comparison she kept turning over and over, examining from every angle, looking for cracks and flaws in her certainty and finding none. 

It's the thought that had her picking up her phone in the darkest part of the night, reaching out and getting nothing in return. 

It's the thought that drove her out of bed and into her kids' rooms where—with a dry-eyed determination that gradually evolved into weeping (so hard she can still feel the ghost of it the next day)—she packed their bags. 

It's the thought that had her pulling that thick stack of annotated papers, a little bit dusty and starting to curl a bit around the edges, out of her bedside drawer. 

When Dean and the kids burst into the house, a whirling dervish of sound, color, and a not-entirely-unexpected amount of stickiness, it takes all of Beth's will not to immediately break down tears at the sight of her family, knowing what she's about to do.

Beth sends the kids straight up to the bathroom, telling them to wash their hands for an absolute minimum of five birthday songs, figuring they’ll maybe make it to three before losing interest. She beckons Dean into the bedroom when she hears their bright, off-key voices start singing upstairs.

"What's up?" he asks, only partially paying attention. "You are not going to believe what Kenny did—"

"Dean," Beth interrupts. Her tone breaks through, and he blinks at her, registering her expression, the bags piled neatly on the bed, the legal envelope next to them.

"Bethie?" The question is small, fragile. Beth feels it in the part of her heart that holds twenty-plus years of fondness, familiarity, and security, even as another part twitches at the diminutive. 

"I need—" Her voice breaks, and she clears her throat. "I need you to take the kids to your mom's."

Dean's face hardens. "Is it him?"

"No!" The denial is immediate and defensive in a way Beth knows won't help, but she can't stop herself. "It's something else, something—It's not safe, okay? I don't want them around this right now. Not until...not until things calm down."

He thinks that over, rolling it around in his head. Beth can read the denial, consideration, and reluctant acceptance that chase themselves across his face like pages in a book. Dean might have ended up being a terrible husband, but she knows he’ll always try to do what’s best for their children. 

Then his gaze snags on the legal envelope, and his expression closes up again. "And that? Is that him?"

Beth picks up the envelope, the heft of the divorce decree crinkling the edges of the nearly-too-small envelope. She weighs it in her hand, considering how much honesty she feels she owes him.

"Yes," she says after a long beat. "But not in the way that you think."

Dean scoffs. "What way is it then?"

Beth struggles for a moment, trying to figure out how to distill down the sheer magnitude of ways meeting Rio has blown open her whole life so she can see the pieces that don't fit into something simple enough for Dean to understand.

"He made me realize this isn't enough for me."

"But what if—"

"Dean." She stops him again, desperately wanting this to be over with so she can spend time with her kids. "There's nothing you can say to change my mind on this. You lost the right to try when you lied about the cancer."

He opens his mouth, stops and stares at her for a moment before he deflates, turning and sinking down on the edge of the bed. "So that's that, then?"

Beth smiles weakly. "That's that."

Dean runs his hands through his hair and lets out a long, loud sigh. "What happens next?"

"We have a nice family dinner and tell the kids they're going to stay at Grandma's for a while so Mom and Dad can sort some things out." 

He nods, staring into space. Beth turns to leave the room and finish setting the table, but he stops her.

"Are you going to be okay?"

Beth turns back, genuinely shocked that Dean asked her that. She can't think of the last time he asked about her well-being without it being connected to something else that mattered more to him.

"Of course," she says in the bright, breathy voice that always soothes him. There isn't really anything else to say.

***

After Dean and the kids clear out, Beth finds herself driving back to the bar. She doesn't know why she's doing it—she's a glutton for punishment, it seems—she only knows she can't be in that big, empty house for another second.

It isn't until she's halfway to downtown that she reluctantly acknowledges to herself there's no reason she couldn't have called Ruby or Annie for company. 

Mick trails behind her the whole time. Apparently he doesn't feel the need to call ahead with a warning, judging from Rio's expression when she walks through the door at the same moment he's coming in from the kitchen.

Beth doesn't say anything to him, just goes straight to the bar and orders a drink she can't really afford right now, but also doesn't know how to keep going without.

She's braced for Rio to ignore her, to leave her there—she has no idea why she came here, of all places, for comfort—so she's shocked when he slides onto the stool next to her, signaling for a drink of his own.

"What you all twisted about?" He says it tired, grudging like he's fighting and losing an internal battle.

"I told Dean to take the kids. To keep them safe." 

They're both quiet for a long moment. Beth's not looking for his approval, much less his support. It was the right call. She knows it and he knows she knows it. She just wants...well, that's the problem, isn't it? She doesn't want to know what she wants. 

She waits for Rio to say—something, she doesn't know what. Something cutting? An awkward platitude? She has no idea which version of Rio is sitting next to her tonight. His consistent inconsistency gives her whiplash.

"How do you deal with it?" Beth asks, finally breaking the stillness between them. "How can you be a parent and do what you do, knowing it might spill over onto Marcus?"

Rio doesn't say anything for so long, Beth's sure he's not going to answer. She doesn't know why she asked in the first place—he won't even respond when it's trivial, let alone something so personal. But the other side of his inconsistency is that he always surprises her.

"I do what you did," he says with a shrug. He clearly wants it to come across as light, something he's accepted and dealt with and isn't bothered by, but Beth can see the weight and shadow of his answer in the inelegance of the gesture. "I keep him away as much as I can. If the heat's on, I disappear until it cools down." 

"I don't accept that," Beth says, appalled at the thought of disappearing on her children. There has to be a better way. 

"It is what it is, ma." 

They drink in silence for a moment, and it's...nice. It's familiar and comforting in a way Beth hasn't felt since before—before the loft. It makes her heart ache for how much simpler things had been back then. Even though they'd seemed impossibly complicated at the time.

She sneaks a look at him out of the corner of her eye, and he looks...sad? Beth remembers Ruby claiming she isn't alone in this, and for a second, that doesn't seem as wildly implausible as it had when Ruby first said it.

Then she shoves that thought as far down as she possibly can. Telling herself pretty lies will only hurt her in the long run.

Beth's nearly finished with her drink, grateful for the reprieve, and already mentally preparing herself to head back to her mausoleum of a house before either of them speak again.

"So, you'll be back on the press tomorrow, yeah?" Rio finishes his own drink and twists around to look at her. Whatever softness she thought she'd seen is gone from his expression, and the smooth, blank mask is back. “There ain’t no union, sweetheart. Strikin’ won’t go over well.”

Right, of course. Beth hasn't made him any money in over a week. She swallows down the bitter taste coating her throat, trying to convince herself she's only surprised he hadn't said anything sooner. She'd been daring him to, after all. 

Beth tosses back the rest of her bourbon and slides off the stool. "Yes,  _ boss." _

She makes it all the way back to her house and into bed before she finally admits she was disappointed he’d broken the moment.

***

The next day dawns bright and sunny. It's the kind of day Beth would normally relish—an opportunity to get the kids out of the house. She'd take them to the park for some fresh air and let them run off all their energy. 

She rolls over and pulls the pillow over her head, trying to muffle the echoing silence of her empty house. Her shift at the Paper Porcupine doesn't start until late afternoon, and it's incredibly tempting to stay in bed until then. Maybe she should call in sick.

Maybe Rio will come over—if only just to drag her out of bed and send her to work. 

That last wretched thought is what drives her out of bed. Beth refuses to be that pitiful. 

What she really wants is to yell at him until he tells her something, anything, so she can stop feeling caught in this airless limbo of not knowing what will happen next. She feels like a bug trapped in amber, the relentless terror that at any moment she could turn around and find something that wasn't there before, shading the world in a sickly, fearful yellow.

To distract herself, Beth takes her time in the shower. She tells herself it’s a luxury to not have to share the water heater with anyone. She attempts to convince herself it's a good thing that she doesn’t have to worry about little fists pounding on the shower door inevitably the very second she’s sudsed up her hair. She pretends it’s worth it that she can stay in there for a full thirty minutes, letting the hot water pound down on her knotted back, working out some of the fear, the stress, the despair. When finally she gets out, the whole bathroom is filled with steam, and her skin is pink and tender. 

Beth slowly makes her way to the kitchen, still in her robe and towel, drying her hair while trying to decide whether to go through the trouble of making breakfast or just sticking to coffee. She lands on coffee right as she realizes she already smells it, and comes around the corner to find two people already in her kitchen: a hulking, tattooed mountain leaned up against her stove and a slender knife of a woman with wild black curls—Mia, of course, it's Mia—seated at the island.

Beth screams, dropping her towel and jumping back a step to clutch her robe tightly closed. The man doesn't move, just watches Beth impassively, arms crossed over his chest, casually gripping a pistol pointed at the floor. Mia doesn't turn around; she continues to noisily eat what looks like a plate of scrambled eggs. Then Beth registers the carton of eggs out on the counter, broken eggshells beside them, and a half-gallon of milk capless, getting warm next to the sink. There's an egg-crusted pan on the island, and it looks like Mia's rooted through at least four cupboards looking for dishes, based on the open doors and contents discarded on every available stretch of counter space. 

Beth's kitchen is a  _ mess. _ She clenches her fists in her robe, digging her fingers into the fabric and twisting, equally torn between outrage and panic. Mia even dug through the muffins Beth had made yesterday, though it looks like she hadn’t eaten any, just smashed them all over the counter.

"Give me a sec," Mia says, mouth full, holding up a hand. "Sorry, you took forever in the shower, and I got hungry."

Beth eyes the mountain, trying to decide if she can make it back to her bedroom and Dean's shotgun before he can shoot her.

"Whatever you're thinking is probably a bad idea," Mia says, slurping down the rest of her eggs and pointing her fork at the mostly full coffee pot. "I made coffee. You should grab a cup, yeah?"

All Beth can see is coffee grounds spilled all over the counter, mixing with what looks like a good amount of cream. Even all four of her kids attempting to make her breakfast in bed with minimal supervision can't manage to make this much of a mess.

Beth opens her mouth to respond—with what, she doesn't know—but no sound comes out. The idea of this—this  _ woman _ , going through her kitchen,  _ destroying _ it,  _ cooking  _ in it, playing  _ hostess _ to Beth in  _ her own house, _ makes her skin itch and burn, and sucks all the air out of the room. She's never felt so furious and so violated at the same time. 

She takes a deep breath. She needs to be smart, not mad, right now.

"Get some coffee." Mia's voice has gone cold and commanding, and the mountain stirs to life, uncrossing his arms. “Have a seat.”

"Can I—" Beth clears her throat. "If I'd known I was going to have company, I'd have gotten dressed."

Now Mia swings around and gives Beth a long, slow look up and down, licking her fork thoroughly clean at the same time. "You look fine to me."

Then she hops down from the stool, her big boots thudding in a way that makes them sound more substantial than they look, which is impressive because they look like they could break a shin with minimal effort. She saunters up to Beth and circles her. Beth sets her jaw and waits, not sure what move is the right one, and determined not to give anything away.

Beth's mind whirls and spins. Trying to think of something, anything she can do to distract them long enough to get away. Trying to remember if Ruby or Annie are likely to walk into the middle of this. Trying to remember if there's anyone else who might be—Mick! Where's Mick? 

She glances around the kitchen, looking for any hint of a fight, of an unconscious, or even— She doesn't see anything, isn't sure how she'd discern struggle from mess.

"If you're looking for your guard dog, he's still outside," Mia says, startling Beth. She needs to remember how observant the other woman is underneath all the playacting. "I wanted to have a little chat without interference, so we came in the back."

So much for guard duty. Beth sends out a silent prayer that she makes it through this to give him and Rio hell for it later.

"I said," Mia gives Beth a little shove. "Get some coffee. I want to talk, and I want you awake for it."

Beth stumbles over to the coffee pot and fishes out her  _ I'd Rather Be Crafting _ mug from the cabinet. She pours a cup, intending to keep it black, but can't stop herself from closing up the cream and putting it back in the fridge. It's like the first domino falling, and then she's reaching for the sponge, starting to wipe up the grounds and spilled cream, her blood boiling higher and hotter as she absorbs the mess in the kitchen all over again. 

"Leave it." Mia's voice is hard, but when Beth turns around, she's smiling brightly and patting the stool next to her. Beth comes over and makes a show of fumbling a little getting onto it, struggling to keep her robe closed and not get too close to Mia, as she positions the stool far enough back that she has a clear line of sight to her bedroom door if she gets the chance to run.

"So," Mia begins once Beth's settled, propping her chin in her hand and leaning on the island. "How's my boyfriend?"

Beth starts, nearly spilling her coffee, and can actually feel the blood drain from her face. 

Mia throws her head back and laughs, loud and echoing around the kitchen. Beth has never hated such a pretty, joyful sound more. 

"Oh, this is too  _ good. _ The two of you."

"Is he—are you—"

"Awww, why? You worried? You should be. We grew up together, we came up together. We've always been together.” Mia pauses, frowning a little. “I mean, okay, we're a little estranged right now, but it's only a matter of time until he sees the light and comes around to my side of things."

That does not sound like Rio at all in Beth's experience—not without a hefty amount of leverage, anyway—but she's not going to correct the madwoman with the armed muscle in her kitchen.

"He didn't tell you any of this, huh?" Mia asks, frowning sympathetically at whatever she reads on Beth's face, and tuts. "That's not going to change."

She cocks her head, studying Beth for a moment. “You know it was never going to work, yeah?”

Beth rears back—the presumption, the condescension, the sheer wrongness of everything implied in that question an affront to her sensibilities.

“I get it, you and him,” she continues, clearly enjoying Beth’s discomfort. “There’s a whole star-crossed lady and outlaw thing going on. It’s hot. I’ll bet you get off on it all the time.”

Beth gapes at her, outraged. It’s true, but it’s not the whole truth, not even a little bit. She’s torn between a desire to defend herself, him,  _ them, _ and revulsion at the thought of giving this woman anything else to twist and profane. 

"You're better off without him, honey," she says, patting Beth on the arm. "He's never going to change. There are three things Rio loves: his secrets, his money, and his power." 

Beth thinks of Marcus, thinks of how sad and tired Rio was in the bar last night, thinks maybe Mia's full of shit.

"You enjoyed him, though, right?" Mia's watching her, bright and curious. "He's good, isn't he?"

Beth blinks, it feels like there are landmines hidden in every word of those questions.

"You're welcome for that," Mia says with a wink and that filthy smile from the other night. "I taught him everything he knows."

Beth wants to claw her eyes out. 

She calculates the distance to the shotgun and tries to estimate how quickly she could get to it. She doesn't have socks on at least, so she doesn't have to worry about sliding. 

"But enough about boys." Mia abruptly straightens up, leer dropping away. "I'm here to talk business. I want you to come work for me."

"Why?" Beth asks, trying to keep up. The next part feels dangerous to say out loud, even without Rio being there. "I'm not—I'm not the only person that can do this. That can run that type of press."

Mia looks at Beth for a long moment,  _ no shit _ written across her face plain as day. "I don't think anyone is unaware of that, babe."

Beth flinches, Ruby and Annie are the only people that call her babe. 

"I've got what you might call a two bird situation," she continues. "You're my stone."

She rolls her eyes at Beth's blank expression. "I've been looking to branch out into this line of business if the opportunity presented itself. You're an opportunity. Sure, I can find someone else who can do this, but I've already found you. I can just send my boys to pick up your stuff from that little shop—”

Beth inhales sharply. She's not sure why she's surprised. If Mia figured out where she lived so quickly, it stands to reason she could've figured out everything else too.

"—and then, boom! You're all set and making money. I've got a few ventures lined up that need some startup capital that no one's gonna look too closely at. You're the missing piece I need to get them up and running."

Despite the fear and anger Mia inspires in her, Beth can't help but feel overwhelmed and bizarrely grateful for all of the information she's just dropped on her. Beth doesn't think she's ever had such a clear view of Rio's plans, not even when they were partners.

"See?" Mia pats Beth's arm again. "You come work for me, and I'll tell you what's going on. I'm an open book; ask anyone. Bruno, tell her. Am I an open book?"

The mountain looming behind her grunts and nods, and Mia smiles, wide and winning. 

For a moment, it's actually tempting. The idea of being able to do what she does for someone who'll tell her what she's doing and why. Beth entertains a brief fantasy of working for Mia and making a name for herself. How she'd come back, and he'd— 

"What's the second bird?" she asks.

"Hmm?" Mia blinks innocently.

"You said there were two birds. What's the second?"

"I think you know."

"Maybe I do," Beth hedges, wanting to collect as much information as possible when it's on offer. "But I want you to say it out loud." 

Beth can't imagine having this kind of confidence in this kind of situation even a year ago. She really has gone numb to danger. "Open book, right?"

She takes a sip of her coffee, flinching at the burn and the bitter taste. 

“Fine.” Mia grins wider, and it takes on an edge that sends a shiver up Beth's spine. "I take you, I break him."

Now it's Beth's turn to laugh. She wants to control it, be cool, but she can hear the breathy, slightly hysterical edge as she says, "I think you've miscalculated a little there."

"I don't think I have." The way Mia's watching her now makes Beth feel like a bug pinned to a board, trapped and studied. "So, what's it going to be?"

"Is there any point in saying no? Discussing terms?"

"Not really, no, but we can if it'll make you feel better." 

"I'd rather get it over with."

Mia nods sympathetically. "The waiting's the worst, right?"

"Can I finish getting cleaned up?" Beth asks, gesturing at her robe.

"Of course!" Mia exclaims. "You'll find I'm a very reasonable boss." Then she grins, sly and cat-like. "It'll be refreshing, I'm sure."

Beth smiles weakly back and slides off her stool, clutching her robe close and grabbing her coffee. If she can just—

"Bruno will keep you company, won't you babe?"

Beth keeps her face impassive as her heart sinks. Mia's still grinning, but it's less conspiratorial, more pointy. Bruno takes a step towards Beth, and she takes a step back. When he takes another, she tenses.

"Oh, don't be like that. Bruno's house trained," Mia assures her, leaning back against the counter and crossing her legs. "He's just there to make sure you don't get any—"

Beth  _ moves _ .

She flings her cup of coffee in Bruno's face, catching him off-guard, and he staggers back, wiping at his eyes where she managed to get most of the hot liquid. In the same smooth movement, Beth throws the mug at Mia's head, but she's sprinting towards her bedroom before she sees whether or not it hit her. She dimly registers a hoarse cry and shattering porcelain.

Beth stumbles into the door frame as she rounds the bend into her room, slamming the door shut and flipping the lock right as Bruno crashes into it. She can hear the wood splinter and groan, but the door and hinges hold. Barely. She can tell from the way it's already caving in that she has seconds before he's through.

She scrambles over the bed, cursing herself for putting the shotgun on the far side of it, but unspeakably grateful she'd flouted gun safety and kept it loaded.

Bruno crashes through the doorframe at the same moment Beth comes back around the bed, shotgun braced on her shoulder, and pumps the barrel. She registers his eyes widening in surprise as she pulls the trigger.

The sound is like thunder going off right next to her ear, and the kick throws her back, jamming the stock into her shoulder. Bruno staggers back, red blooming across his gut and, not letting herself think about it, Beth pumps the shotgun and fires again.

Bruno falls backward, taking a chunk of the shattered door frame with him, the red exploding from his chest now. He hits the wall and slides down, leaving an awful smear that reminds Beth of chunky spaghetti sauce behind him. When his legs slide out from under him, he tips over and his arms flop, the hand holding his pistol going slack, letting it clatter to the floor. 

Beth's chest is heaving, every breath burns, but it doesn't feel like she's getting any oxygen. There's a high pitched ringing in her ears, and they feel hollow and empty in a way she can't process. Her entire world's narrowed down to the ruin of Bruno's chest, where she can see bits and pieces of things she knows aren’t supposed to see the light. For a second, her vision goes dark around the edges and the light takes on the silver-blue tint of moonlight. The air smells stale and musty, and she can hear Bruno gasping and choking, except he isn’t, because his chest is still.

The creak of that one floorboard in the hallway cuts through, and Beth snaps to attention. She pumps the shotgun and waits a long moment, unable to look away from the wreckage of Bruno’s torso and strains to hear any sound, but there's nothing. 

Stepping as lightly as possible, Beth creeps towards the door. She still can't hear anything, so she steels herself and darts out, over Bruno's legs, twisting to keep the gun pointed in front of her, and sliding in the slick mess spreading across the floor.

Mia's standing halfway between the kitchen and bedroom, a puzzled expression sitting awkwardly on her face. She's got her own gun out, but she doesn't raise it. Instead, she looks at Beth and cocks her head like she's doing some rapid reevaluations. 

Beth steps towards her, shotgun raised, finger trembling on the trigger. 

"Get the  _ fuck _ out of my house."

Mia's puzzlement melts into delight that goes vicious around the edges, and she opens her mouth, but before anything comes out, the front door flies open, and Mick's there, gun drawn and raised. 

"Don't!" Beth shouts, and she can see him pause and look at her out of the corner of her eye. She’d been thinking of the neighbors and not attract more attention with a third gunshot, but has just enough presence of mind to realize she probably shouldn’t give Mia the impression they won’t shoot. “Only if you have to.”

Mia's eyes dart back and forth between the two of them, and for a long, tense moment, Beth isn't sure what she's going to do. But then she takes a step back, then another, then another, until she's backed into the kitchen and she salutes them with her gun and turns and runs out the mudroom door.

All of the air leaves Beth's lungs in a rush, and she staggers forward, nearly dropping the shotgun. Her heart is beating so fast it feels like it's going to take flight right out of her chest, and she's suddenly shivering and sweating at the same time. 

She leans up against the hall table and shakily props the shotgun against the wall before forcing herself to take a deep breath in and out through her nose. Then another, then a third. When the room’s stopped spinning enough that she can look up without throwing up, she sees Mick hovering, his gun tucked away like he doesn't know exactly what to do in the situation, but feels like he should probably do something.

Beth straightens up, forcibly pulling herself together and points at the body without looking at it. "Do something about that."

Then she straightens her robe, smooths back her hair, shoves her feet into the boots she keeps by the door, and marches outside. Mrs. Karpinski's already coming up the driveway, naked curiosity all over her face, and Beth greets her halfway, armed with a funny story about trying to clean Dean's shotgun and accidentally setting it off—twice, can you believe it?—and assurances that there's no need to call the police.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because you’re fuckin’ _mine_ and she knows it,” he snarls, grabbing both her wrists to stop her from shoving him again. The way he says mine—low, and dangerous, and rough—makes her pulse spike. Her brain tells her she hates it, but her body tells a different story—a story written in electrified skin and sparked nerves and heated blood pooled low in her belly. 
> 
> “I’m not _yours,_ ” she hisses, tugging against his grip, but he doesn’t give an inch. “I’m not anyone’s. I’m _my own._ ”
> 
> “Not in this world you ain’t.” Rio’s close, closer than he’s been since...since that day she’d broken into his apartment, she realizes. When she’d been raw and hurt and disgusted and afraid—he’d been sending her severed parts of the body he was holding over her, for God’s sake—but still drawn to him in a way she couldn’t explain. “You owe me, you work for me. People come at you? They comin’ for me.” 
> 
> “Fuck that,” she shoots back. She wants to see him snap, unravel, wants the undeniable proof that something seething and alive still thrives beneath the mask.
> 
> “Don’t fuckin’ push me, Elizabeth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to [nickmillerscaulk](https://nickmillerscaulk.tumblr.com/). I mean, all of them lowkey are but this one especially because it wouldn’t exist without her, I was so stuck and she just casually picked apart the knot and broke the whole thing wide open and then went and did it again when it was still not quite there. She is my favorite and all of the best things about this chapter are because of her.

Beth’s going to have to paint the hallway. 

The thought keeps circling around her mind like goldfish in a too-small bowl. She thinks it over and over and over again until it becomes a mantra because the alternative is thinking about why. 

Her eyes flick down at the dark shape sprawled out on her floor, then back up to the wall and the dark, clotted, smear of red marring it—gruesome, but safer to look at than what’s on the floor.

Actually, she’s going to have to paint the hallway, the den, probably the kitchen, and maybe even the foyer. 

Beth had told Dean an open concept was a terrible idea. It was much better to have a series of appropriately labeled rooms to put the appropriately arranged things in. But he said he wanted to watch her cook—at the time he’d made it sound sweet, and she didn’t realize until later it implied he’d be sprawled out on the couch—and pointed out that without walls, it’d be easier for her to keep an eye on the kids. He had a point there, and she hadn’t felt strongly enough about the rest of it to fight him, but she regrets that now because it means that the hallway blends into everything else. If she’s going to paint one part, she’ll have to paint them all because there’s no way she’ll find more of the wallpaper to cover it up, they put it up so long ago. 

She keeps seeing moonlight dancing along the edges of her vision, and all she can smell is pennies and gunpowder and something fouler than she’s ever smelled before. It reminds her of the time Kenny found a squirrel that had been hit by a car and insisted on trying to nurse it back to health. He’d swaddled it in a makeshift nest they’d made out of one of Beth’s shoeboxes next to his bed. She’d snagged the first available appointment with the vet, but the next morning when Beth went to collect the box, she’d known it was too late the moment she set foot in his room. There’d been a dark, almost sweet—but horribly so—smell faintly lurking underneath the sweat and peanut butter and little boy that she’d never forgotten. 

The hallway smells like that but exponentially worse. Beth can paint the walls and sand the floors, but she can’t imagine how she’ll ever get the smell to dissipate. She’ll always smell it here and remember.

“Mrs. Boland.” 

Beth jumps, spinning around and clutching her robe to her throat. Mick’s in the hall, as patient and unflappable as ever, two tattooed kids hovering behind him. Beth’s pretty sure she recognizes them from the parade that’d been coming through the Paper Porcupine, but she never learned their names. She’d never wanted to ask. 

Mick nods at her like he wants her to do something, and she blinks at him for a moment before realizing the kids are holding a bulky rolled-up tarp, and the pieces click into place.

Beth looks down. 

They’re here to get rid of the dead body with a torso like raw hamburger that’s lying in the pool of gore and blood and shattered pieces of door frame between her and her bedroom. 

Then Beth remembers she’s still in her robe, the underwear she’d put on after her shower underneath it, and that’s it. The slickness on her feet that she’d walked through had started drying into a sticky crust in the boots she’d jammed on to hide it from the neighbors, so she kicked them off, unable to bear the tactile sensation for another moment. How is she supposed to get cleaned up if she can’t get into her bedroom?

Beth looks back at Mick, her breathing speeding up and going shallow, in a mute appeal to help her and tell her what to do. 

“Step in the dry spots, Mrs. Boland,” Mick advises. His voice is soft and steady, and it wedges itself under Beth’s skin like a splinter under a fingernail, sharp and burning. If he hadn’t been reading celebrity gossip out in his car, none of this might have happened. She treasures the anger that starts to simmer at the thought. The heat clears some of the fog that’d been gathering in the spaces where she’d been forcibly holding thoughts of the body at bay.

“Thanks for the advice,” she snaps. “Timely as ever. Is there some crime version of Hints From Heloise out there I should subscribe to? An enewsletter with things like  _ Ten Tips for Dealing with A Murder Scene in Your Bedroom _ ?”

He doesn’t say anything, only blinks at her like this kind of storm is something he’s used to weathering, he just has to wait it out. 

She sees the kids watching behind him, eyes bright and curious and like hell she’s going to give them any reason to tell anyone she was weak. She takes a deep breath, studying the wide pool, dry spots few and far between, and steels herself against the cool, syrupy feeling of the viscous liquid squishing between her toes again. Then, moving slowly so she doesn’t slip, she steps gingerly over the body and into her room. 

*** 

Beth’s mostly on autopilot when she gets out of her second shower, distantly noting that the—the body’s gone from outside her door, but the stain’s still there. She slathers on moisturizer more out of nearly 25 years of habit than need and pulls on the first thing she touches when she fishes around in her housework drawer. She realizes after she’s put it on that she grabbed the shirt from Canada and has to sit down on the edge of the bed and put her head between her legs for a minute.

She remembers how small the hole in Rio’s side was and how it looked nothing like what had happened—what  _ she’d done _ to Bruno.

There’s no sign of Mick or the kids anywhere in the house when Beth finally makes herself step back over the bloody puddle and out of her room. She sticks her head out the front door and sees that even though the van the kids pulled up in is gone, Mick’s empty car is still parked across the street, so she doesn’t feel entirely out to sea—even though he’s proven to be little more than a decorative ornament. 

She may not be entirely abandoned, but she is horribly, crushingly, suffocatingly alone.

Beth scrolls through her phone, considering and rejecting calling Ruby or Annie—they’ll only panic and make her explain what happened, and Beth isn’t ready to retell it yet. Her thumb hovers over that last unread outgoing text to the unsaved number from the middle of last night. 

It’s somehow fitting, according to the new and strange rules of her life, that she’s just killed a man and the only person she wants to be around is the man who’d first put a gun in her hand and pushed her down this path. 

Beth exhales, and it aches. She can feel the echo of the shotgun kick in her bruised shoulder and her stomach twists. She sees Bruno jerking back when that first shot went through him. She blinks, trying to clear the image, but now she’s seeing Rio, jerking back, confusion and fury twisting his features into something monstrous and strange.

Beth drops her phone on the hall table. She doesn’t need him, she doesn’t need anyone. She can handle cleaning her own goddamn house. 

That simmering heat from earlier bubbles a little higher and Beth fans the flames—she’d rather be angry than hollow, or worse, catatonic—as she fills a bucket with cold water in the kitchen sink, grinding her teeth and taking in Mia’s mess all over again.

She pulls out the brush and rubber gloves she keeps specifically for bloodstains—another gruesome detail of her life she can thank him for—and mixes some dish soap into the water. She’d gone to him for help, told him about Mia, and he brushed her off like he always did. 

Beth storms across the hall, splashing water as she goes, unable to bring herself to care. What’s one more thing for her to clean up on her own? 

Her whole life, she’s been the only one she can count on to clean up a mess, why would that be any different now?

Beth pulls her t-shirt collar over her nose and furiously attacks the stain on her floor, not letting herself think about what she’s scraping up, diluting, and washing away. She focuses on the patterns the brush makes in the soapy muck and scrubs until her hand locks into a claw, and her knees have actually stopped aching and gone numb.

She scrubs long past the point where she’s picking anything up anymore. Long enough that her hair has dried and started to mat in the sweat beading along her hairline and gathering on the back of her neck. Long enough that she’s out of breath, and it sounds more like sobs echoing around the little alcove. Then she starts on the wall.

She’s been scrubbing so long, she’s gone through the wallpaper. She pauses to catch her breath, noticing the paint underneath has started to come off the wall under her brush, when a hand lands on her shoulder, and she spins around so fast she backhands Rio away from her. 

He staggers back a step, and she freezes, the only sound between them the harsh, ragged gasp of Beth’s breathing.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, wiping sweat and hair out of her face with her arm. Rio looks at her, incredulous, rubbing his jaw where she’d hit him. Beth’s getting really tired of people looking at her as if she's crazy. 

It’s not like it’s all that unreasonable of a question; he’d ignored her, blocked her number, told her she had nothing worth saying to him, and then sent her back to her house like none of this was any of her business. 

“Heard you finally popped your cherry, had to come see for myself.” 

Beth wrinkles her nose at the crude phrase, doubly offended that he’s applying it to murder. 

“You’re too late.”  _ Again. _ “Your boys already cleared out with the body. You can go now, your work here is done.” If he’s going to disappear she’d rather he do it on her terms, at her command, than keep feeling the lurching emptiness, like walking down stairs and missing a step, of turning to him and having him not be there.

“What’d she say to you?” he asks, ignoring her.

Beth snorts. “You know, maybe if your watchman hadn’t been napping out in his car and missing the show, he could answer that for you.”

Rio frowns like she isn’t acting the way he expected. Good. Let him be the off-balance one for once. What did he expect? A weeping, blubbering wreck? Maybe if he’d been here when it was fresh and raw, but no, not now. Not when she’s had hours by herself to pack it all away.

Beth stomps past him, hauling the bucket of filthy water into the mudroom to deal with later. Rio follows her into the kitchen and stops, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, sucking his teeth and surveying the scene. 

“Your girlfriend doesn’t have much by way of manners,” she says, watching him take it in from the doorway.

“She ain’t—” he stops, shaking his head.

“She’s not what? Your girlfriend? Sane? She’s definitely not a polite house guest.” 

That hysterical edge is back in her voice, and Beth hates that it’s becoming a recurring feature almost as much as she hates that she can’t control it. Hates the way it makes her sound weak.

“Get it together. I ain’t got time for this.” 

The disdain in his voice is a match struck near gasoline. The flames Beth’s been fanning erupt into an inferno and her temper boils over.

“You don’t have  _ time _ for this?” Beth spits the question, something nasty and spiteful weaving its way through the words. “I’m so sorry, am I keeping you from something? Something more important? How’s rebuilding the business going? Still having to make those accommodations?”

She’s playing with fire, reminding him of the ways she’d set him back, but she can’t bring herself to care. Not in the middle of the ruin that is her kitchen, not with bruises on her knees from kneeling on the hardwood for hours to clean up the bloodstains, not with the taste of pennies and death and gunpowder still lingering faintly in the back of her throat.

“That ain’t your fuckin’ concern.” He bites off the words as though he’s putting everything he has into holding himself back, like she’s the one throwing a fit and he’s determined to be the adult in the room. Beth sees red.

“Of course, it isn’t. Why would it be? Why would I need to know anything about any of this when I can just sit here and wait like a pretty little doll, gift-wrapped for your lunatic girlfriend to pick up at will?” 

“Good to see you’re still jealous,” he says, rocking his jaw in that way he does that equal parts enthralls and enrages her, depending on the context. The urge to bite it and break it hits her so forcibly her teeth ache and her hands curl into fists, fingernails biting into her palms.

“I’m not  _ fucking jealous.”  _ Beth may actually be having an aneurysm. “I want to know what’s _ going on! _ ” 

The worst part of this is how familiar this specific strain of anger is. Her whole life has been a series of things she’s waiting for without even realizing it: the truth, her turn, to matter as herself and not an extension of someone else.

“Nah, see, that ain’t how this works.” Rio rocks back on his heels, jamming his hands even farther into his pockets. “This is a one-way conversation, you ain’t earned the right to ask questions. Tell me what she fuckin’ said.” 

“Sucks doesn’t it?” Beth taunts, knowing she’s so far past the point of reason and not caring in the slightest. “Someone holding back information you need?”

“Elizabeth.” It’s more growl than a word and Beth bares her teeth at him. 

“Fine,” she says, switching tactics. “She offered me a job again. Said she’s an open book, and that that’s something you’ll never be.” 

“A’ight.” He huffs a small, bitter laugh coated in history and Beth hates it so much she thinks she might expire on the spot. 

_ “God! _ Seriously?” she cries, advancing towards him. “That’s all you have to say? Still?” 

He tucks his tongue in his cheek, eyebrows lifting. “What else you want?

“How about ‘I’m sorry’? How about ‘I should’ve listened’? I came to you  _ four days ago _ , telling you she was  _ in my house, _ and you didn’t give a  _ shit.” _ She gets up in his space and shoves him back on the last word, surprising him and knocking him back half a step.

“I told you I was handing it,”  Rio says, voice vibrating with barely restrained temper. He regains his ground, crowding her and looming over her. 

“Well, great  _ fucking _ job!” She shoves him again, but this time he’s ready for her and doesn’t move.  “I don’t even know why she was here; why I’m in the middle of this.”

She’s getting dangerously close to admitting what she’d told Mia—that she doesn’t need Beth. She knows she needs to  _ stop _ , to calm down and think, but he’s looking at her with those dark eyes lit with fury, his full lips twisted into a sneer, and it makes her lose sight of everything else. 

“Because you’re fuckin’  _ mine _ and she knows it,” he snarls, grabbing both her wrists to stop her from shoving him again. The way he says mine—low, and dangerous, and rough—makes her pulse spike. Her brain tells her she hates it, but her body tells a different story—a story written in electrified skin and sparked nerves and heated blood pooled low in her belly. 

“I’m not  _ yours _ ,” she hisses, tugging against his grip, but he doesn’t give an inch. “I’m not anyone’s. I’m  _ my own.” _

“Not in this world you ain’t.” Rio’s close, closer than he’s been since...since that day she’d broken into his apartment, she realizes. When she’d been raw and hurt and disgusted and afraid—he’d been sending her severed parts of the body he was holding over her, for God’s sake—but still drawn to him in a way she couldn’t explain. “You owe me, you work for me. People come at you? They comin’ for me.” 

“ _ Fuck _ that,” she shoots back. She wants to see him snap, unravel, wants the undeniable proof that something seething and alive still thrives beneath the mask.

“Don’t fuckin’ push me, Elizabeth.” 

She can hear that something prowling around the edges of his words. There’s something wild and feral in his eyes, and Beth recognizes it because it’s the same something she knows is looking back from her own.

Her pulse pounds, and she can feel that telltale flush creeping up her neck, spreading across her cheeks. They’re close enough that they’re sharing the same air, trading it back and forth in a thrumming feedback loop. She can feel the heat of him radiating in the barely-there space between them, an echo of the molten honey spreading under her skin.

“Stop me, then,” she dares him.

Rio lunges, and she’s there to meet him.

She can’t stop the groan that tears free of her when they crash together in a violent tangle of lips and teeth and tongue. When the taste and feel and smell of him explode across her senses. A victorious thrill zips up her spine at the answering noise that escapes from the back of his throat and she shivers against him.

Her hands flutter and grasp at nothing, desperate for anything to anchor herself against before she’s entirely swept away. Rio responds by tightening his grip on her wrists, enough that the bruising sensation has her pressing up against him, frantic to release the angry, jagged, humming static trapped under her skin through friction. 

Still holding onto her, Rio pushes Beth back until she hits the island. When he shoves a knee between her legs, forcing them apart, she grinds down on his thigh like her life depends on it. She sinks her teeth into his lower lip, trying anything she can to get closer, consume him, get lost in him for as long as he’ll let her. 

Beth pulls back, gasping, surprised by the depth of her desire, but Rio doesn’t give her time to catch her breath. Instead, he goes straight for her neck, finding that spot that Beth didn’t know existed before him, but now swears is the most sensitive point on her whole body. He bites down exactly right, and she cries out, the sound ragged and primitive, entirely at odds with the peaceful late morning sunshine beaming in through the window but fitting for the ruin of the kitchen around them.

A bolt of pure, fierce, primal satisfaction lances through her when she remembers the mess and who made it and what they’re about to do on top of it.

She wiggles, trying to get some leverage to hop up on the island, and Rio doesn’t need further direction. He releases her wrists—the sparkling rush of blood to her fingertips making her gasp—and hooks his hands around her thighs, hoisting her up on the counter. Beth wraps her legs around his hips, pulling him in and shuddering when he presses himself hard against her. 

Rio grabs her by the hair and yanks her head back, exposing her throat. Her whole body pulses and contracts, and she clings to the collar of his jacket, trying to weather the storm as he nips and sucks at her neck, her collarbone, the curve where her neck meets her shoulder. 

Beth shoves his jacket off, the urgency thundering through her veins, making her fumble. He lets go of her just long enough to shrug it off and she fists her hands in his t-shirt, pulling him into her for another rough, bruising kiss.

She licks into his mouth, and he bites her tongue, and she makes a savage noise low in the back of her throat. She yanks at his shirt again and dimly registers the soft sound of fabric tearing. 

He reaches for the hem of her shirt, tearing it over her head but leaving her arms caught in it as he slides his hands into the waistband of her sweatpants and panties, yanking them down. Beth gasps into his mouth at the feel of the cool counter on her bare ass, shifting her hips to help him pull them off even as she’s still struggling to free herself from her t-shirt.

Leaving her twisted up, he tangles a hand in her hair, pulling her mouth back to his and digging his fingers into her skull to hold her in place. His other hand slides between her thighs, nudging them apart and running two fingers along her. She’s so wet, her body offers no resistance, and they slip right into her. Under other circumstances, she’d be embarrassed by the helpless, high-pitched whimper she lets out the moment she feels him inside her.

He laughs into her mouth, triumphant and a little bit mean, and she bites his lip again, hard enough that she tastes blood bright and rich and copper on her tongue. 

He rewards her by curling his fingers and hitting that spot that drives her wild. She moans into his mouth and grinds down on him, squirming to try and get closer, feel more. 

She finally tears her arms free of her shirt, breaking the kiss, and reaches for him, but he lets go of her hair to gather both of her wrists in one hand before she can make contact, squeezing them together in a hard, merciless grip. He pulls out, and she makes that mewling, whimpering noise again, this time in protest, but he ignores her. He grabs the t-shirt she’d just detangled herself from and wraps it around her trapped wrists once, twice, three times and then gathers the slack in the fabric in a fist, holding them bound. 

Beth yanks against him, but the binding holds fast and Rio takes advantage of her momentary distraction to push three fingers into her, stretching her almost to the point of pain. It takes her breath away and she contracts around him so hard and sharp and sudden her whole body jerks. He watches her like a hawk as he flexes his fingers. She’s so full, the tiny ripple of movement hits every switch in her, and her whole nervous system flares like a shorting circuit. 

Beth had never been as turned on, wanted someone as much, as she had that night in the bar. He’d been a revelation in the things her body was capable of, and she thought for sure she’d discovered her furthest limits in that bathroom, as he held her against the wall and moved in her. 

That night pales in comparison to how she feels right now with her hands bound and Rio’s fingers buried inside her. 

Her world has narrowed down to his eyes, his fingers, his heat. She’s an addict tumbling all the way off the wagon, and the overwhelming relief of having her drug of choice back in her system is nearly enough to make her weep. 

“No one else can make you feel like this.” Rio’s voice is hoarse and low and rougher than Beth’s ever heard it. There’s something dark and possessive shadowing his eyes, and she hates it even as she craves it. She stares up at him, mute and trembling around him. He’s right, but she’s not going to tell him that. 

“Say it.” He gives her wrists a shake and curls the fingers inside her, pressing his thumb down deliberately on her clit at the same time. She gasps, shivering and clenching around him, but locks her jaw, refusing to let him win. 

He smirks and strokes her again, finding that spot inside and circling her clit with his thumb. She knows it’s a trap, but she can’t help the way she tilts her hips up, leaning back against his grip and trusting him to hold her up, to give him better access. Her eyes flutter closed as he works her higher and hotter, and right as she’s starting to tremble and pant, he pulls out of her entirely.

Her eyes fly open, and he’s still smirking that hateful, infuriating smirk. Keeping her trapped between his body crowded against her on the island and his uncompromising hold on her wrists, he uses his other hand to pull his gun out of the waistband of his pants, setting it on the counter. Beth shivers—she’s horrified she’d forgotten he’d have it on him—and does her best to ignore the dark thrill the sight of it inspires. Then he’s undoing his jeans, pulling himself out and Beth sucks in her lip, inhaling sharply and hating the way he gloats at her reaction. 

She squirms against his grip, sliding her hips closer to the edge of the counter, and he lets her, just enough that he can rub the tip of his cock against her clit. 

“Say it,” he commands, and she shakes her head, refusing to unlock her jaw, not knowing what will come out, afraid that she’ll beg. 

Rio dips his hand back between her legs, gathering the wetness pooling there until his fingers are slick with it, and starts to stroke himself. Beth’s scooted close enough that his knuckles graze her with every movement, and each feather-light touch blazes through her. She’s so close to the edge she can see it, can feel it simmering inside her, but it’s not enough to get her there, and he knows it.

Rio leans down and bites her ear lobe, his breath warm against the delicate shell of her ear. “Your move.”

Beth’s hips buck, and her skin is alive and electric. She yanks against his grasp, but he’s unyielding and relentless. He speeds up, the motion of his hand smooth and steady, but Beth can feel his breath come a little faster. She tightens her legs around him, digging her heels into his thighs, putting everything she has into it, trying to pull him closer, but he doesn’t budge. 

She can’t, she won’t, she will not say it, she swears as she burns, hollow and empty all the way to her core. Every time he brushes against her throbbing, overheated skin, she clenches down on nothing.

Maybe it’s because Beth’s so desperate she thinks she might die from it. Maybe it’s because his face’s still buried in her hair, lips pressed to the oh-so-sensitive space below her ear, so she doesn’t have to look at him when she says it. Maybe it’s because fighting against him is starting to seem less like winning and more like willfully losing. Whatever it is, Beth closes her eyes and swallows her pride.

“No one else,” she whispers. 

Beth feels the muffled, ferocious sound Rio makes against her neck more than she hears it, and then he’s pushing into her. The feel of him—hot and hard, and all the way inside her,  _ finally _ —is too much, and Beth comes all the way apart, erupting like a volcano with a long, low moan. 

Before she’s come all the way down, he’s working her clit with talented fingers as he moves in her, and she’s going back up and up and over the edge. Wave after wave of heat and sensation crashes over her, and at some point, Rio lets go of her wrists to spread his hand across the top of her ass, pulling her nearly all the way off the counter for a better angle, holding her in place as he thrusts. 

She wraps herself around him, looping her loosely bound hands over his neck and clutching him to her, trying to pull him closer still. He bands his other arm around her shoulders, crushing her tight against him like he can’t stand to be alone in his skin for another moment either, and she feels him jerk against her, losing his rhythm. Then he thrusts into her as far as he can and comes with a hoarse groan, his forehead resting on Beth’s shoulder.

The silence that falls in the aftermath is only broken by the mingled sounds of their uneven breathing as they cling to each other and come back to themselves.

After a long moment, Rio pulls back, slipping out of her and ducking out from under her hold to turn away and pull his pants back up, scooping his gun off the counter. Beth’s feet hit the ground and she staggers a little without him there to support her, her knees not all the way ready to hold her up, before finding her footing. 

She twists herself free of her t-shirt and gathers her sweatpants and panties discarded on the floor. She shuffles around him and grabs some paper towels, handing one to him without looking to see what he does with it and wiping herself off, hissing a little at the rough paper on her over-sensitive skin.

Beth feels awkward and clumsy as she gets dressed, her anger washed away in the wake of want, and the absence leaves her uncertain of where they now stand. She fiddles with the drawstring of her sweatpants, tying and retying it into a bow, buying herself some time before she has to look at him.

But when she does, he isn’t any of the things she thought he might be. There’s no anger, no disgust, no smug triumph. Instead, he’s standing there, surrounded by the wreckage of her kitchen, looking more exhausted than she’s ever seen him.

There are deep shadows under his eyes, she realizes, and the slumped angle of his shoulders gives away more than she thinks he realizes, because otherwise, she knows he wouldn’t let her see it. He’s watching her warily, and there’s a long jagged tear from the collar of his t-shirt to halfway down his chest. Through the hole, she can see the delicate curve of his collarbone and a shiny ridge of mottled skin that she knows is the edge of one of the scars she gave him.

It’s such an unexpectedly and unnervingly vulnerable picture, Beth has no defenses against the wave of tenderness that swells in her. It’s the only explanation she can muster for what she does next.

“Wait here,” she tells him and hurries back to her bedroom.

Not letting herself think about what she’s doing, she opens the top drawer of her dresser, where she stores her keepsakes, the things that matter most to her. She pushes aside the tattered remains of all four kids hospital blankets and one of the tens from her first successful print run. She shoves past Annie’s favorite cardigan—the one she wore every first day of school from first grade until she’d finally grown all the way out of it in fifth. There’s a strip of lace from her wedding veil, the tassel from Ruby’s graduation cap, a piece of a torn padded envelope, and a folded piece of paper made out to a boss bitch in the most ridiculously terrible handwriting she’s ever seen. She reaches all the way into the back corner and pulls out the bundle of fabric she’d buried back there, where she didn’t have to see it even if she was unable to let it go.

When she returns to the kitchen and holds it out to him, she can barely look at him as he processes that she’s handing him one of his t-shirts that she’d stolen from the stash he’d left her in the storage facility for no reason other than it smelled like him.

He stares at it for a long moment before taking it from her, and when he finally looks up, there’s something raw in his face. Something that makes her think that maybe he won’t turn this on her and make her pay for letting him see what a sentimental fool she’s been since all the way back then.

Unable to look at him a second longer, she goes to the other side of the island and starts gathering up the dishes and putting them in the sink to soak. 

After a moment, she hears him move and starts a little when he reaches past her for the sponge. She spins around, but Rio's back is already to her, and he’s wiping down her counters. 

Beth’s heart lurches, and she has to turn back around before he can catch her watching. She can see her reflection in the window and every single thing she’s feeling—the ghost of her faded anger, persistent fear, complicated want, unbearable regret, and a fragile, blossoming tenderness, all the tip of the iceberg—is written across her face. 

She closes her eyes for a moment, trying to find her center and regain some control before picking up the pan Mia had used to make her eggs and scrubbing at the crusted remains with the dish brush. 

“Is she going to come back?” 

“Mia? Maybe,” Rio says. “She’s—I thought she’d come at me first.”

Beth knows from anyone else that that would be an  _ I’m sorry.  _ It’s closer to one than she expected from him; a few more of the jagged edges inside her smooth over.

“How’d she find me?”

He’s quiet for a long moment, and Beth scrubs furiously at the pan, waiting, hoping, silently begging him to answer, to tell her anything.

When he finally speaks, it’s quiet, harsh, and bitten off like he has to force the word out. “Dags.” 

Beth’s breath gusts out in a rush, and now she turns to face him, dropping the pan. He’s not looking at her, methodically wiping up every crumb on her counters, his usual languid grace absent and replaced by barely-contained rage.

“Did he—Is he—”

Now he looks at her, a single darting glance, there and gone but long enough that she can see the storm in his eyes. “He never came back from Canada.”

The pieces click into place one after another. Rio's fury at the bar that night, his distance, the way he’d been so shut down and contained. It’s unforgivably self-centered, she realizes, but she hadn’t considered until this moment that it could’ve been about anything other than her, that there was anything else stealing his focus.

“Is he…” Beth trails off, not knowing which is worse—if he’s dead or working with Mia—and not wanting to be the one to voice either option.

Rio nods, digging the sponge into the counter harder than the mess warrants. “She left him out behind the bar this morning.”

Dead then.

Beth has no idea if they were close—if Rio cares beyond the fact that he lost—but when she considers the tense set of his shoulders, the determined way he’s not looking at her, and the ferocity with which he’s cleaning her kitchen, she can tell he’s hurting. She starts to reach for him, instinctively seeking to comfort, before she catches herself. That’s never been the way between them, and if he let her change that now—if he even wants comfort from her at all—it would be admitting weakness.

She turns back to the dishes, scraping them clean so they can go in the dishwasher.

“Who is she?” The question is quiet, almost lost in the running water, but she knows he can hear her from his long, heavy sigh.

“We grew up together.” 

Beth’s hands tighten on the fork she’s holding, and she can feel the cheap metal give slightly under her grip. Mia had said that, but Beth hadn’t realized how much she didn’t want it to be true.

“She lived on my block and used to play with—she’d come ‘round a lot. Her dad bailed when she was in diapers, and her ma wasn’t around much. Mostly workin’, partyin’ when she wasn’t. She didn’t really want a kid. Mia more or less grew up in my Abuela's house with us.”

_ Us? _ Beth doesn’t ask the question aloud, not wanting him to shut down, to retreat—not when he's telling her so much, so freely. 

But it makes her realize she’s never really thought about what Rio was like as a kid. In her mind, he’s always been what he is. Like he’s some gang banging Athena, born fully-formed, all swagger and ink, from the shadowy corner of the mind of whatever god watches over inner-city Detroit. 

“When I started gettin’ into shit, she used to try and cover for me, smooth things over. Then she saw the kind of money I was makin’ and wanted to get into it too. And she was...she was good at it. There ain’t anything she won’t do to get to the top.”

There’s a bitterness to the last part that indicates a vast gulf of unspoken history and betrayal. Beth’s hands clench around the edge of the sink, and she tries to shake off the bile she tastes in the back of her throat. His romantic history is the least of the things from his past she needs to be worried about.

Suddenly Rio’s right up next to her and Beth turns to him, taken aback by his urgency.

“You gotta—” He breaks off with a curse. “Mia, she doesn’t have limits. She’s not like me.”

“You have limits?” Beth can’t help the bite in her tone. Rio—the man who mailed her pieces of a corpse for weeks, who snatched her out of her driveway with a bag over her head, who demanded she murder a federal agent—and limits are not two things that coexist in her mind.

His lips twitch, acknowledging her unspoken point before his expression sobers again.

“There’s a line.” He steps closer, crowding her like he can press the importance of his point into her with his body. “You fight me every step of the fuckin’ way, but I try to keep you on one side of it.”

He reaches out, hesitant in a way she’s never seen him, and gently pushes a lock of hair off her face. Beth’s eyes fall shut, and no power on this earth could stop the sigh that escapes her at his soft touch. 

“Why’d you do it?” The question comes out before Beth realizes she was going to ask it. She opens her eyes, and he’s so close, eyes dark on hers, a question in them.

“Kidnap me,” she clarifies, because when it really comes down to it, that betrayal is the part she truly can’t understand.

He sighs and drops his hand, backing up a step, and her body goes cold without his warmth against her. “Because you weren’t gettin’ it.” 

“Getting what?”

“That you don’t get second chances in this line of work, and you can’t give ‘em to people either.” 

“I don’t—I—“

“Yeah, you do. You’d give everyone a second and third and a fourth chance if you could.” He says it solemnly, but there’s something fond playing around his lips that drops away as he keeps going. 

“That’s how you wind up dead. Limits aren’t just about letting people know who you are and what you expect—they’re about makin’ sure people take you serious enough that they think twice about comin’ for you. You want to survive this? You want your kids back? You gotta make sure people know crossin’ you is dangerous.”

Beth lets out a shaky breath. “So you, what? You kidnapped me to set a limit? To teach me a lesson?”

He shrugs like  _ what can you do _ . Like trauma is a perfectly reasonable method of teaching. 

“I was  _ terrified.” _

“I wasn’t gonna hurt you.”

“I didn’t  _ know _ that.”

“You should’ve.”

“ _ How? _ How was I supposed to know that? You don’t tell me anything about what you’re planning, what you’re thinking. You just tell me what I’m doing wrong, demand that I fix it—your way, not mine—and tell me all the ways I’m going to end up dead.”

“You still breathin’ ain’t you? _ ” _

The words burst out of him, followed immediately by a ripple of regret, and a wave of anger washing over his face before he looks away. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Beth can see him shutting down, and she is absolutely not having it, not when it finally feels like they could find a path out of this snarled thicket of hurt and anger and mistrust and betrayal they’ve been mired in ever since that night. 

“Rio.”

His head snaps back to hers, and it strikes Beth that she doesn’t know if she’s ever said his name to him before. 

It feels clumsy in her mouth. She so rarely says it to anyone, afraid that if she does, they’ll be able to hear all of the things she shouldn’t be feeling behind it like Ruby and Annie had that first time.

“Please.” It’s a simple word, made complicated by everything between them. Please tell me, please forgive me, please don’t hurt me, please trust me. 

_ Please let me trust you. Please mean it.  _

He swallows hard, dropping his gaze to the counter. “It means that anyone else who crosses me like you do should be dead at least five times over, probably more.”

Even though it echoes what Ruby said, it’s not enough. She can still tell herself she wiggled out with her wits—or he kept her for the money, for the thrill of the game, to win.

“Why aren’t I?” she whispers. 

He doesn’t say anything, but he looks up at her, and in that look, he lets her see  _ everything _ . 

That Ruby was right. That every wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t Beth is wrestling with is there behind his eyes too. She sees that whatever this indefinable something is that keeps them in orbit around each other, pulling closer and tighter with each pass, he feels it, mistrusts it, and craves it just as much as she does. 

Beth recognizes and treasures the gift Rio’s giving her, letting her see what he can’t put into words without immediately snatching it away and punishing her for being the person he let in. 

She has so little to offer him in return, but she gives him what she can. 

“I’m sorry.” She tries to fill the words with everything inside her: for the loft, for not listening, for not seeing, for not understanding. She tries to put it all into those woefully inadequate words, and wrap them in a promise to do better going forward. 

Rio studies her for a long moment and nods. Some of the tension recedes from around his eyes, the set of his jaw, the line of his shoulders, and Beth can feel herself do the same. 

The silence between them now feels still, but not loaded. Their bombs are defused, and their safeties are on. 

“What happens now? What do I do?” Beth asks. 

He shrugs. “There’ll be a reckonin’, but we ain’t there yet.”

Beth feels something warm bloom inside her ribcage at the  _ we. _

“Get your house in order,” he continues. “Make some money.”

Beth snorts.

“We might be literally making you money, but we aren’t actually making any money,” she says in response to his raised eyebrow question. “In a few weeks, I’m not going to have a house to get in order.”

“Besides,” she continues, remembering her conversation with Dean—at the time, it’d felt so long overdue, but now that she’s revisited the math on the cost of a divorce lawyer, it feels horribly impulsive. “I have some additional expenses now.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

She looks at him for a long moment, shifting her weight, trying to decide how much she wants to let him in. But he’s just told her about his childhood—it was mostly about Mia and barely about himself, yet it’s by far the most personal thing he’s ever told her. If he’s willing to try, then she is too.

“Dean and I are filing for divorce,” she says. Both his eyebrows shoot up at that, whether it’s surprise that she’s telling him or surprise that they’re actually filing, Beth doesn’t know. She assumes the former, seeing as he’s never seemed to care all that much about her marital status before.

Suddenly, she remembers that night in the dealership after the first time they’d—she’d—after the bathroom. She remembers the unnerving, maniacal edge to his energy, so unlike anything he’d ever presented before. She shakes it off, that was business. He saw an opportunity and wanted back in. It had nothing to do with her, with them. 

Rio leans back against the counter, arms crossed, jaw working as he chews that over, considering her. 

“Maybe we can renegotiate terms.” He says it so casually, so reasonably—when the sentiment, from him of all people, is anything but—that Beth drops her sponge and gapes at him in shock. 

“I—We—” Beth scrambles to collect her fragmented thoughts. She can’t waste this opportunity, too much is riding on it. “For all of us, Annie and Ruby too?”

He nods once, barely more than a jerk of his chin, but Beth recognizes this for the gift that it is. The overwhelming relief at the thought of maybe, finally, starting to claw her way out from under this mountain of debt that’s been suffocating her for so long, makes her dizzy.

She closes her eyes, leaning over the sink and taking a moment to absorb it.

“Okay,” she says finally, and when she looks at him, a small smile is playing around the corners of his mouth. She wants to fling herself at him, to kiss him, hug him. 

The thought stops her in her tracks. This is business. Treating it as anything else is the stupidest kind of mistake.

Beth pulls herself together. “Thirty percent.”

Rio laughs at that, but it’s bright and not mean. It takes her back to that day in her backyard when she’d told him about Dean and those kids and how they hadn’t even properly gagged him, but he’d been too panicked—too stupid, she’ll privately admit—to figure it out.

“We’ll see, yeah?”

Beth turns back to the sink, smiling to herself, and looks out the window, surprised to see the sun is setting. As if on cue, her stomach growls, and she realizes she’s yet to eat anything today.

She darts a glance back at Rio, and he’s still watching her, brow creased a little now like he’s trying to work something out, but she has no idea what. 

She could make them dinner. The mental picture that thought brings feels foreign—like it’s slightly brighter or softer than how she usually thinks of them. Obviously, nothing like how things have been between them recently, but even back when things were their version of good. It’s too mundane, too domestic. They’ve eaten together before—or at least, she’s met Rio places where he’s been eating—but cooking for him? Eating together at her house? That’s...very new.

Still, she needs to eat. And he’s here.

“Are you—” Beth breaks off, asking him if he’s going to stay feels like too much, a step too far. “Is Mick coming back?”

Rio sucks on his lower lip and slowly shakes his head. “Not tonight.”

_ Oh. _

“I could—” She wets her suddenly dry lips, and something in her tightens and warms when his eyes follow the movement. She feels the ghost of him inside her, the ache in her wrists where he’d held them. “I was going to make dinner.”

He doesn’t say anything, only nods. Beth wonders if he’s thinking about the last time she’d offered to make him something to eat, too.

She shakes herself out of it and goes to the fridge to see what her options are. No sandwiches. She always has dried pasta, that’s an easy base. A good amount of white wine is still leftover from the other night—when the girls aren’t around, she usually sticks to bourbon. She checks her freezer and finds some peas, shrimp—

“Are you allergic to shellfish?” she asks over her shoulder, still digging.

“Nah.” 

Beth tucks the nugget of information away in the stash of things she knows about Rio that’s grown exponentially in the last hour alone. Shrimp scampi it is. Simple, elegant, feels more impressive than it actually is. She can toss the peas in there for extra protein and a green vegetable. Two birds, one stone.

She remembers Mia sitting at her counter, telling Beth she’s her stone, Bruno looming behind her and Beth shudders, hands going nerveless. The bags of shrimp and peas tumble to the ground and her vision goes hazy around the edges.

Then Rio’s there, gently pushing her back onto one of the island stools, gathering up everything she dropped and putting it on the counter before kicking the freezer shut. He steps in front of her, gently nudging between her legs with his body to get close and takes her hands, rubbing and pinching the pressure point between her thumbs and forefingers. The slightly uncomfortable sensation is the lifeline she follows back to herself.

“Breathe, ma,” he commands. “Like the other night. In and out, yeah?”

She nods and does what he says, the panic and terror subsiding with each exhale. His eyes stay dark and steady on hers, and he waits patiently as she breathes in and out.

“You with me?” 

“I killed someone,” she whispers, voice thick. 

“You did.” The straightforward acknowledgment is more soothing than any platitude or false comfort would have been. “It was him or you. You regret pickin’ you?”

Beth shakes her head.

“There you go, then.”

She remembers Bruno jerking back, superimposed with Rio, that night in the loft, and her fingers tighten around his until she’s holding onto him instead of the other way around.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers again. It’s still laughably inadequate compared to what she’s feeling, but she doesn’t know how to even begin putting all of that into words. 

It’s not enough, though, because Rio cocks his head, confused. She tries again. 

“When I—when he—” She tilts her chin towards her bedroom, unable to say it, not when she’s thinking about how close it was to being him. “I kept seeing you.” 

Understanding dawns and Rio rocks back a step, not far enough that Beth has to let go, so she keeps clinging to him, because she doesn’t know how not to at this moment. She needs the physical tether, the conduit between them, to express all the things she can’t put in words.

He looks past her, and she watches his Adam's apple bob as he swallows, his eagle nearly taking flight. She watches a multitude of emotions flash over his face, not one of them there long enough to be read, but clear enough that she can see the conflict surge through him and settle. When he looks back at her, his face is clear.

“You ain’t the first, you won’t be the last.” He gently detangles his hands from her grip, stepping back. “I thought you were gonna make us something to eat.”

He’s put some distance between them, but only half a step. It’s trivial compared to the chasm that’d been there before and the thing that bloomed in her chest at his  _ we _ earlier aches and swells.

Beth nods and stands, moving around him to finish what she started.

It isn’t until she’s halfway through sauteing the shrimp, Rio at the sink draining the pasta, that she realizes the soft, warm feeling in her chest is a kind of peace she hasn’t felt in years.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh my god,” Annie says, bypassing her mug and taking a drink straight from the bottle. “Does this make me the responsible sister? Am I the one who makes the good decisions now?”
> 
> “I mean, I wouldn’t award that prize to either of you,” Ruby retorts automatically, grabbing the bottle from her and pouring a healthy measure into all three of their mugs. “How’s your therapist?”
> 
> “Shut up and let me have my moment.” Annie narrows her eyes, looking Beth up and down. “At least that explains why you’re wearing a turtleneck in June.”
> 
> “It’s still cool outside!” Beth hadn’t realized how enthusiastically Rio had marked up her neck and chest until this morning. She stumbled into the bathroom after she’d woken up and realized she was covered in bruises shaped like his mouth, as stark and clear as if he’d signed his name all over her skin.
> 
> “Not that cool,” Annie says, a smug, knowing thread in her voice that Beth doesn’t care for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO I AM BACK I deeply apologize for the delay and am desperately grateful for your patience and enthusiasm while I figured out what this chapter needed to do. 
> 
> As always, my eternal gratitude to [nickmillerscaulk](https://nickmillerscaulk.tumblr.com/) who is literally the best beta in the world, she makes everything so much better 💖

“I’m sorry, let me make sure I have this right.” Annie slouches back in her camping chair, tenting her hands over her chest like she’s preparing to psychoanalyze Beth. “Gang nemesis _stayed the night?”_

“Nothing happened,” Beth says. It’s true if she pretends Annie’s only talking about after dinner. She pokes the pulp sheets drying on the rack. This batch is ready to be pressed.

“Uh, I beg to differ. The guy who was hell-bent on killing you up until, what? Three weeks ago? _Two?_ Stayed the night.”

“On the couch!” Beth protests. Annie’s not wrong; on paper, it all seems slightly insane, but paper’s never been able to contain more than a shadow of what Beth and Rio are when they’re in proximity to each other.

Beth doesn’t want to have this conversation, doesn’t want to tell Annie—or Ruby when she gets here, for that matter—about her and Rio and...whatever is happening between them. And she definitely doesn’t want to tell them about Bruno when she’s barely ready to process shooting him herself. She doesn’t think she can handle any of what they’ll have to say about it.

But they need to know Mia’s a threat, so when Annie showed up at the Paper Porcupine ready to pulp and print, Beth adjusted the truth and said the other woman had come back to the house, taunted her, and left. Unfortunately, then Beth got caught up in Annie’s immediate and gratifying outrage that Mick hadn’t served his purpose and slipped up, admitting she’d already yelled at Rio about it. 

“Hold that thought,” Annie pops out of her chair and grabs her keys. “This is a booze conversation, and we killed the store bottle last time.”

“Do you need cash for a run?” Beth asks, piling the sheets of raw paper into the press.

“Please. You guys make fun of my car, but it’s times like these when things like car booze come in handy,” Annie says, heading to the door. “I’ll be right back, and you’d better prepare yourself because there is definitely more to this story, and I’m not leaving you alone until you tell me what happened next.”

What happened next was a weird dinner, but a good weird—not like the car ride back from Canada weird. That weird had felt like two people stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the merrily burning conflagration of baggage between them. Last night was the kind of weird that comes after a storm: stumbling out of shelter, disoriented and off-kilter but with a sense of calm that only comes from knowing the worst is over and what happens next is a matter of figuring it out.

They’d eaten in a tentative, aware kind of silence. Beth fished around, needling Rio about Mia, trying to get a rise out of him to see if he’d slip up and give her more information about their history, about his. He saw through her and only propped his chin in his hand, eyes bright and amused—something she would’ve called fondness, if she didn’t know any better, playing around the edges of his smile.

Afterward, he’d helped Beth clean up—a move she wasn’t expecting, considering how Dean and the kids typically scattered to the wind as soon as their plates were clean—and it was...nice. 

When Rio escaped to the patio after, phone pressed to his ear, Beth didn’t know what to do with herself. After hovering awkwardly by the kitchen window for longer than she’d care to admit, she poured herself a drink and cued up one of the backlog episodes of _Real Housewives_ on the DVR. She wanted to turn her brain off for a while and let her subconscious sort out everything that had happened that day. Apparently, she’d succeeded beyond expectation, because she didn’t even make it all the way through the first episode before falling asleep. 

Beth woke up later that night with a horrible crick in her neck, disoriented and confused. It took her a minute to realize she’d woken on her own and not from a nightmare, making it the first time in months that had been true. 

She didn’t see any sign of Rio as she shuffled to the kitchen for a glass of water, mildly embarrassed and annoyed with herself that he’d left while she was passed out. But then she spied a telltale blue glow out the kitchen window, his phone screen bright enough that she could see his tapping thumbs and the barest hint of his face where he sat on top of her picnic table, the rest of him shrouded in night. 

The achingly familiar sight had settled into her bones, warm and weighted and oh so comforting. She thought about going out and sitting with him but decided not to, afraid to make the wrong move, to break this fragile peace between them. 

In the morning, Rio was gone. The only sign he’d been there at all was the rearranged order of throw pillows on the living room couch. Mick gave Beth a nod from the picnic table as she made coffee, wishing her a good morning when she brought him a cup along with an omelet she’d thrown together. 

In hindsight, a part of her thinks she should be horrified that she could sleep so quickly and so soundly after killing a man. But the thought gets drowned out by Rio’s voice in the back of her mind asking her if she regrets picking herself and her ‘ _no’_ comes without hesitation. 

She’s more concerned with trying to pinpoint the shift between them. Their conversation in the kitchen felt like turning a page, but it’s almost as if this new page is written in invisible ink, and she doesn’t have a warm enough light to reveal what comes next. 

Beth snaps back to the present when the back door swings open, Annie’s voice preceding her into the room. “Honestly, if anything, staying on the couch makes it weirder. If he’d gotten his dick wet—”

 _“Annie!”_ Ruby walks in behind her, shaking her head, distracted by the vulgarity of what Beth assumes is the recap Annie’s been giving her.

“What?” Annie sets her bag and a bottle of whiskey on the counter, grabbing their mugs and turning towards Beth. “I’m just saying, I get it if there’s something in it for him. But if he’s— _no!”_

Beth’s always hated the way her uncontrollable blush could flare up and give her away with no warning. The telltale tingle had started to spread as soon as she heard what Annie was saying, and she can’t entirely stop herself from squirming at the memory of just how wet Rio’s dick got. She concentrates harder than she needs to on unscrewing the press, silently praying for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. 

_“No way!”_

“Beth?” Ruby asks, understanding dawning in the way she draws out her name.

Beth glances up, blushing even brighter when she sees Annie staring at her like she’s grown a second head, and Ruby’s eyes go wide as she puts the context clues all the way together in her head and catches up. 

“Oh my god,” Annie says, bypassing her mug and taking a drink straight from the bottle. “Does this make me the responsible sister? Am I the one who makes the good decisions now?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t award that prize to either of you,” Ruby retorts automatically, grabbing the bottle from her and pouring a healthy measure into all three of their mugs. “How’s your therapist?”

“Shut up and let me have my moment.” Annie narrows her eyes, looking Beth up and down. “At least that explains why you’re wearing a turtleneck in June.”

“It’s still cool outside!” Beth hadn’t realized how enthusiastically Rio had marked up her neck and chest until this morning. She stumbled into the bathroom after she’d woken up and realized she was covered in bruises shaped like his mouth, as stark and clear as if he’d signed his name all over her skin.

“Not that cool,” Annie says, a smug, knowing thread in her voice that Beth doesn’t care for.

Beth focuses on stacking the pressed sheets on the counter, tapping and fussing with the edges and corners to make sure the pages are precisely aligned, hoping the conversation will go away if she refuses to engage.

“Um, no, sorry, you don’t get to do that.” 

Beth looks up, and Annie’s glaring at her. “Do what?”

“Act like this is one of those things you don’t have to loop us in on. I know you get off on keeping secrets—” 

“I don’t—”

“But that won’t fly if your coochie’s gonna be making life or death decisions for the rest of us,” Annie says, bulldozing right over Beth’s protest.

It’s not like Beth doesn’t see Annie’s point, but she doesn’t know what she wants her to say. Something’s inarguably changed between her and Rio—he doesn’t seem to want to kill her anymore, for one—but she doesn’t know what it means. 

“We’re renegotiating the terms of our agreement,” she offers to both of them in an attempt to steer the conversation in a better direction. “So we can start making money again.”

Annie snorts, clearly unimpressed.

 _“What?”_ Beth asks, exasperated.

“Nothing,” Annie shrugs. “I just thought the whole reason we started this in the first place was to work for ourselves, make some real money. And here you are chasing the status quo.”

She doesn’t say _like always,_ but she implies it so strongly she might as well have, and it chafes. Beth glances at Ruby, hoping for back up. 

“Sorry B,” Ruby says with an apologetic shrug, handing Beth her mug. “She’s got a point.”

“That’s not—I’m not—” 

“So, what, we’re gonna be his partners again? Like the dealership?”

“We haven’t gotten into specifics,” Beth says, not wanting to admit she suggested thirty percent, and he hadn’t even agreed to that. Yet. She gulps her whiskey, coughing a little at the burn.

“Mmhmm,” Annie hums, dismissive. “Dong fog.”

 _“Excuse me?”_ Beth doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but she definitely doesn’t like it.

“Just seems to me like we were trying to actually get somewhere where we were doing our own thing,” Annie shrugs. “But now that you went and got some, you’re totally content to go right back to the way it was before, letting gang nemesis call the shots while you follow him around like a puppy.”

“We were _partners!_ ” Outrage makes her voice shrill.

“Were you?” The sheer volume of pity Annie manages to pack into a single question is impressive and puts Beth’s back up.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Beth looks to Ruby for support, but she just shakes her head.

“Nuh-uh,” Ruby says, grabbing the stacked pages and carrying them over to the Heidelberg. “I’m not getting in the middle of this.”

“Coward,” Annie says to her back before leaning on the counter and returning her attention to Beth. “Okay, fine, let’s do this. Where did the pills come from?”

“Canada?” Beth says, thrown by the abrupt question.

“Sure, but where in Canada?” Annie fires back. “Did you ever meet anyone? Have a number to call? What would happen if gang nemesis got food poisoning or something and called in sick for a few days? Would you still find out about new drops, or would that take you out of the game?”

Beth sputters, unable to come up with a satisfactory answer to any of those questions. She wants to deny it, but Annie’s right. Even though Beth and Rio called themselves partners—her more earnestly than him, she’s forced to admit now that she’s thinking back to it—it hadn’t been a true partnership. Sure, she’d coerced him into giving her fifty percent of the profits, but he still called all the shots, pulled all the strings. He’d given her just enough autonomy that she felt in control.

It’s a sobering realization—one that Beth isn’t sure what to do with right now.

Annie must read it in Beth’s expression, because she makes a satisfied face and drops down on a stool. “I rest my case.”

“So, what?” Beth bursts out, pulling up her own stool. She hates that Annie’s cornered her, that she’s pushed Beth to think about this, that she’ll call Beth out for making decisions for all of them and in the same breath expect her to keep doing it. “What would you do differently? How should I have handled it? What should I do?”

It’s gratifying to see Annie blanch at the question—even more gratifying to see that she can’t come up with an answer.

“What do you _want_ , babe?” Ruby starts up the press and comes back over, settling in at the counter with them. “Maybe start there.”

The question stops Beth up short, and she realizes she doesn’t know. She hasn’t thought about it, really. She’s been careening from one catastrophe to the next ever since Rio came back and, despite finding herself in the crosshairs of a lunatic, this is the first time things have felt settled and stable enough for her to ask herself anything like that. 

What _does_ she want from any of this? From the business? From Rio? When it stops being about getting out of debt, taking control of her life, and even—she doesn’t like this part, it makes her feel petty and small—chasing a new thrill, what’s left and can she build a life around it? Does she want to?

She remembers the near-ecstasy and the fierce pride of seeing JT test their bill and the counterfeit scanner lighting up green. _Their_ bill that _they’d_ figured out how to make—for themselves, on their own terms. 

She studies the shop with the clanking and groaning press, the blenders, and the kiddie pool. Sure, the setup is a little makeshift and patched together, but it works. More importantly, it’s theirs, and they’re _good_ at it. 

She looks at Ruby and Annie, sipping whiskey here with her. She keeps dragging them deeper and deeper into the dark, but they’re still here with her, ride or die, and she loves them all the way down to her bones.

This is what she wants, she realizes. To be able to keep doing exactly this: making money off of making money with her girls at her side. She wants to do it for them, not for a cut of someone else’s profit. 

“Why can’t we keep doing this?” Beth asks them. “That was the plan, right?”

Annie and Ruby look at each other, then back at her, confused.

“We take our profits and invest in more and do it again and again until we’re making real money.” Beth looks around the shop again, actually allowing herself to picture the future she wants to build, feeling excitement seed and sprout and start to grow in her chest. 

“We could do a lot here, maybe even expand. Annie, you said yourself, Dorothy is getting old. I’ll bet if we made enough, she’d let us buy this—” She turns back, and the incredulity on their faces cuts her off. “What?”

“Um.” Annie glances back at Ruby, confusion and worry painted across both of their faces. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?” Beth asks again. 

“Gang nem—fri—” Annie breaks off, frowning. “I don’t actually know what to call him right now.”

Ruby rolls her eyes. “What she’s trying to say is that was the plan when we thought homie was dead.”

“Which he’s very much not,” Annie chimes in, bright and sarcastic. “Judging by the proof of life hiding under that sweater.”

The windmill arm of the press clanks and Beth blushes and glares, entertaining a brief fantasy of being an only child. 

“You think he’s going to be cool with us taking over a piece of his business?” Ruby continues. “I know he doesn’t play by the same rules with you, but that’s not how this works, B.”

“I—” Beth’s excitement wilts. She’s riding the high of their tentative truce, and even that small amount of reconciliation is enough that she got ahead of herself. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

She thinks back to that night in Canada, how Rio only wanted thirty percent from Mia. Maybe if she can come up with a good enough—

_Ding._

Beth frowns. Ruby and Annie frown back, equally confused. The store’s closed, no one should be ringing the counter bell. 

_Ding. Ding._

Beth swears she locked the front door. 

_Ding. Ding. Dingdingdingding._

Dread creeps up her spine and hollows out her stomach. 

“Wait here,” she whispers, and whatever Ruby and Annie see on her face has their eyes widening.

Beth looks around the shop for something, anything she can use as a weapon. She curses herself for not bringing the shotgun, for not asking Rio for a gun, even as she shudders at the sense memory of her hand curling around the grip of his pistol.

In the end, she grabs an Exacto knife, figuring the inch long blade is better than nothing at all, and carefully slides it into her back pocket.

_Dingdingdingdingdingding._

“Don’t go,” Annie hisses, grabbing Beth’s arm as she heads towards the door to the front. “We can call the police.”

Beth raises an eyebrow, pointing to the press clanking away, spitting out sheets of counterfeit tens. 

“We can sneak out the back!”

“And leave all of this?” Beth whispers, shaking her head. She gently detangles Annie, glancing at Ruby for help, but Ruby’s frozen on her stool, watching Beth with wide, terrified eyes. “It’s okay, I’ve got this.”

“Just—” Beth pauses at the doorway, biting her lip, not wanting to freak them out more, but also not wanting them to be unprepared. “Be ready to run.”

She slips through the door, hoping the sound of the hinges and the creaky floorboards of the shop cover Annie’s panicked squeak.

_Dingdingdingdingdingding._

Beth edges towards the corner that will reveal the counter, each soft step feeling like a thousand miles. She can feel her heartbeat hammering in her throat, her fingertips, her temples. She tries to take deep breaths to steady herself, but she can’t get her lungs to do more than gasp. Every time she blinks, she sees the raw, red ruin of Bruno’s chest in the flash of dark.

The optimistic part of her is trying to convince the rest of her that she forgot to lock the door, that this could be a regular customer here to pick up a custom order. She forcibly suppresses a hysterical giggle at the thought of the potential misunderstanding. 

But when Beth rounds the corner, of course it’s Mia, and she’s brought two guys with her this time. One of them is behind the counter working on prying the register open and the other’s flicking through a display, picking up and discarding things with no finesse or care for the arrangement.

The casual disregard for the work Beth’s put into making the store look appealing stiffens her spine and kindles her temper.

Mia’s leaned up against the counter, legs crossed in front of her and elbows casually propped up on either side of her. She’s absently tapping the bell with a finger, the gun in her other hand already pointing in Beth’s direction. All of her attention lasers in on Beth as soon as she comes into view.

“Hey babe,” she says, giving the bell a final _ding_ and shoving herself off the counter. A huge, gleeful grin spreads across her face. “Miss me?”

“Can’t say that I did,” Beth says, coming to a halt with the table between them. She slides her hands into her back pockets in what she hopes reads as a nonchalant gesture. The cool metal of the Exacto blade’s handle against her finger makes her feel the tiniest bit better. 

The register chimes as the guy behind the counter succeeds at prying the drawer open, and he starts pulling out the cash.

“Hey,” Beth calls, proud of the way her voice doesn’t waver. Her anger’s starting to overtake her fear. “That’s not yours.”

“Kinda is,” Mia says, her attention still focused on Beth. “You owe me.”

“For what? For Bruno? You didn’t seem too broken up at the time.” Suddenly inspired and hoping maybe she can find a crack in their foundation, Beth raises her voice a little. “Come to think of it, you didn’t seem too upset when Rio shot your boy in the knee the other night. It doesn’t sound like you’ve got a very caring office culture.”

“We do okay,” Mia smiles like she knows exactly what kind of a game Beth’s playing and is unbothered by it. But Beth sees the way her eyes tighten around the edges. “My boys know the score. It’s a risky business, but the perks make it worth it.” 

As if to emphasize her point, the man messing with the display sweeps his arm, sending the contents to the table crashing to the ground, trinkets shattering, rainbow shards of glass spreading across the floor, mixing with glitter and ribbon and paper goods. 

“Oops,” Mia says. “I hope we didn’t scare your friends.”

Beth’s blood runs cold. “What are you talking about? I’m the only one here.”

“Really?” Mia scrunches her nose in a parody of confusion. “Who’re they, then?”

Beth whirls around, and there’s another large man with a gun marching Ruby and Annie out of the back room.

 _Sorry_ , Ruby mouths as they slide up beside Beth, Annie clinging to Ruby’s arm. Beth tries to keep her face as calm and reassuring as possible, not letting any of the icy fear coursing through her show. 

“You should know, we’re a package deal,” she says, turning back to face Mia, trying to position herself as close to equal distance between both guns and the girls as she can, balancing on the balls of her feet, ready to lunge in either direction. She slides the Exacto blade in her sleeve as she pulls her hands out of her pockets, not sure exactly what she’s going to do with it but wanting to be ready if an opportunity presents itself. “If anything happens to either of them, I’ll never work for you.”

“Mmmm, yeah, about that.” Mia slowly circles around to the opposite side of the table, tapping her gun against her lips like she’s thinking something over. The man who’d wrecked the display wanders over to the card racks, flipping through them, sticking a few in his pocket before shoving the whole shelf over. Ruby flinches and Annie squeaks at the impact, but Beth is carved from marble, rock steady and waiting for her moment. 

“Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to regretfully rescind my offer,” Mia continues, pivoting back towards Beth and planting her feet, crossing her arms behind her back, and cocking her head. Her stance is so familiar. The evidence of how much history lies between Mia and Rio is so blatantly on display—right down to their shared body language—that Beth feels her heart crack, and this time she can’t stop herself from wincing.

“I’ve been thinking it over.” Mia’s smile spreads wider as she takes in Beth’s distress. “And I guess I just don’t see it working out in the long run.

The guy at the register comes out from around the counter, shoving over the display as he passes it. The one over by the card rack’s pulled out a flask and is dumping something over the wreck. A distinctive, acrid, and vaguely sweet smell cuts through the air. Beth realizes it’s gasoline right as the two other men pull out flasks of their own and start splashing the contents over the rest of the store. 

From behind her, Beth hears Ruby start to pray under her breath as Annie starts to cry. Those sounds, more than the gas and the guns and the madwoman in front of her, sharpen her focus. The colors in the room get brighter, edges grow crisper, and the familiar heat and tingle of adrenaline spark through her nervous system as her brain clicks into high gear. She tightens her grip on the blade in her sleeve. 

“What are you going to do? Shoot us and then burn this place down to cover your tracks?” Beth asks, eyeing Mia’s gun. “I’ve seen enough CSI to know they’ll still be able to tell we were shot. That kind of thing attracts attention around here. The store doesn’t keep enough cash on hand to make a robbery all that worthwhile, it’ll be suspicious.”

“Oh my god, shoot you?” Mia laughs that horrible, grating laugh of hers. “No, no. That’s your move.”

She says it with an edge clearly intended to wound, but Beth doesn’t flinch. There’s too much at stake to lose focus.

The faintest smell of burning curls through the air, and she realizes the room’s going hazy around the edges, because it’s starting to fill with smoke.

“Beth,” Annie gasps, terror saturating and thickening her voice.

Beth sees movement out of the corner of her eye but doesn’t take her attention off of the woman with the gun in front of her. A fourth man comes into view, moving quickly towards the front of the shop, and it hits Beth like a fist to the gut that the back room is already on fire.

“If I shoot you, there’s a good chance you’ll pass out pretty quick,” Mia says it brightly, like a parent presented with an exciting teachable moment. “But if I light your store on fire and trap you inside it, you’ll get to experience _everything.”_

Beth can hear the _flick, flick, flick_ of the lighters igniting, the crackling pop of the fire already eating through her work in the back, and the furious, greedy whoosh of the gas trails going up. Annie’s soft sobs have turned to a low keening moan, and she’s already coughing a little. Ruby’s prayers have hit a fever pitch, the individual words completely indistinguishable from each other. 

Rising above that nightmarish symphony, Beth hears her own breathing, a harsh echo in the dark hollow of her empty head as her plans and schemes and ideas to get them out of this drain away one by one. 

A drop of the sweat that’s been beading on her hairline breaks free, tracing down the side of her face—the cool trail it briefly leaves in its wake a shock. Beth hadn’t realized how warm she was, but now that she’s aware, it’s unbearable. 

Her vision narrows to Mia smiling as she backs towards the door, the men she brought with her crowding around her as they finish their dirty work. The store fire alarm starts to blare, and one of the men shoots it, the gunshot like thunder in the small space.

“Why?” Beth gasps as they reach the door, a last ditch attempt to see if there’s anything she can use to talk them out of this. “Why are you doing this?” 

“It’s like I told you,” Mia says with a shrug. “You owe me. Think of it like a life for a life.”

“Then let them go,” Beth cries, ready to beg if it’ll help get Ruby and Annie out of this. “They’re not a part of this. _Please.”_

Mia cocks her head, studying the three of them like she really is considering Beth’s plea. But then she shakes her head, something that might actually be regret dimming her smile. “No can do, you’re a package deal, right? I don’t like loose ends. Besides, I need to make a statement, there’s more at stake here than you know.”

“Like _what?_ ” Beth asks, choking on the last word, the air is getting thicker and harder to breathe in.

“Uh, pretty sure you’ve got bigger things to worry about,” Mia rolls her eyes, before snapping that full wattage, hateful mockery of a friendly smile back into place. “So here’s what we’re gonna do, yeah? We’ll be right outside to make sure you stay put, and if you don’t, _then_ we’ll shoot you.”

One of the guys shoves the door open, and Beth realizes she hadn’t noticed how smoky the room had already become until it creates a vacuum, sucking out a cloud of inky black smoke and temporarily clearing the dim haze in the foyer.

The nothing in her head is abruptly replaced with the excruciating, screaming knowledge that they’re going to run out of breathable air _fast._

“It was nice knowing you,” Mia says, waving, and Beth doesn’t let herself think. She whips her arm back, flinging the Exacto blade as hard as she can. Shock splashes across Mia’s face and she dodges to the side, but she’s too slow. By some miracle, Beth’s aim is good enough that the blade whips past her face, leaving a line across her cheekbone that immediately starts dripping red.

Mia’s face contorts in fury before smoothing out into a nasty smile. “That’s not going to save you, bitch.”

“I didn’t expect it to,” Beth says, not recognizing the low, hateful rasp in her voice. “But it sure felt good.” 

The men have their guns raised and pointed, looking to their boss for guidance, and for a moment, Mia looks like she’s wavering. Beth grabs Ruby’s and Annie’s hands, whether for reassurance or in preparation to pull them out of the line of fire she doesn’t know, and doesn’t get the chance to find out.

“Let ‘em burn,” Mia says, storming out the door. Her guys follow, pulling the door shut behind them and sealing the three girls alone inside the burning building.

As soon as they’re gone, Beth drops to the ground, yanking Annie and Ruby along with her, relieved to find the air is still cooler and a little clearer towards the floor. She frantically scrambles at the necks of their shirts, pulling them up over their mouths, and when they catch on and hold them in place, she rolls the neck of her turtleneck over her own. 

Trusting the girls to follow and keeping herself low to the ground, Beth scuttles towards the back of the shop. Everything is going monochrome as smoke fills the space, steadily leaching the color from the room. The back room is already ablaze; dancing, climbing, grasping flames greedily eat their way through all of the paper stacked on every available surface, tucked in cubbies and stuffed in crannies. 

Beth’s never properly appreciated what a tinderbox the Paper Porcupine is until this very moment. 

There’s a roaring filling her ears—she never realized how _loud_ fire could be, the hungry rumble muffles all other sound and almost feels more suffocating than the heat and smoke—so she can’t hear what Ruby’s saying when she comes up beside her, but the way she points a trembling hand towards the back door is clear enough. Beth shakes her head, equal parts denial and need to escape the dangerously mesmerized stupor she’d been falling into. 

Instead, she tugs Ruby’s arm and pulls her towards the much closer back wall. She’d placed a bookshelf there for Dorothy, covering up a window that overlooks the tiny alley behind the store where the filthy, scarred up dumpster lives. The bookshelf had done double duty, providing extra storage space and preventing the view from ruining the store's aesthetic. And now a third bonus: offering a hidden exit in a corner the fire hasn’t yet reached.

Beth prays Mia will stay out in front, trusting the fire to do her work for her and prevent the girls from escaping out the back. 

The bookshelf looms out of the haze and Beth yanks Ruby to the side, turning to meet her wide, red eyes. There are tears pouring down her face, cutting trails through the soot. 

“There’s a window,” Beth yells, voice thick. “Grab Annie. Stay to—”

The rest of her explanation is lost in a coughing fit, so she mimes shoving the shelf over. 

Ruby nods and grabs Annie, pulling her in and off to the side. Beth ducks down to try and get a cleaner breath and lurches forward, head spinning a little. They need to hurry.

She hooks her hands around the shelf, wedging herself against the wall, and pushes with all of her might. The bookcase is solid hardwood and only shifts a few inches, but it’s enough that Beth’s able to jam her shoulder between it and the wall. Summoning every ounce of strength and energy she can muster, fueled by fear and rage and desperation, she shoves the shelf away from the wall. 

The case tips and crashes to the floor. She doesn’t waste time checking to see if Ruby and Annie are okay—they have to be, she won’t accept anything else—and instead scrambles for the window lock. It’s old and stuck fast. She feels her nails breaking, feels splinters from the frame dig into her fingertips, but doesn’t stop until she manages to pop the lock. 

When she goes to shove the window open, it’s jammed and Beth’s arms are noodles; she doesn’t have any strength left to loosen it. She doesn’t have _anything_ left.

She sags. If she can’t get it open, if they’re trapped, she doesn’t know—she can’t—

Ruby shoves her aside and Beth trips back over the bookcase on the floor. Annie catches her and holds her up as Ruby tugs once, twice, and on the third try, wrenches the window open. The gust of fresh, clean, _cool_ air that hits Beth’s face brings with it a renewed rush of adrenaline and determination. They’re so close.

The three of them lurch towards the opening, yanking their shirts down and frantically gulping for the sweet, beautiful oxygen. As she catches her breath, Beth meets Ruby’s eyes over Annie, and without saying anything, the two of them hoist her up, shoving her head first out the window. 

Annie starts to squawk but cuts herself off before Beth can shush her and remind her of the large men with guns that may or may not be lurking. Annie twists as she falls, landing on her shoulder with a soft grunt, and scrambles up and out of the way. 

Beth and Ruby have a quick, silent argument, both of them motioning the other forward before Beth sets her jaw and takes a step back. Ruby rolls her eyes but doesn’t waste any more time fighting about it. She climbs up on the overturned bookcase, using the height and the window frame to lever a leg up and over the sill. Beth darts forward again to brace Ruby as she swings her other leg up. Beth feels more than hears her grunt as she scrapes it along the window frame. 

There’s a scary moment when Ruby can’t get the angle right—the window is narrow, and Ruby is, as she’s fond of declaring, a woman of luscious and voluptuous curves—but she wiggles and Beth shoves, smashing Ruby’s face into her boobs in a way that would be hilarious under other circumstances, until she drops gracefully to the ground.

Beth grabs the window frame, preparing to swing herself over and out and pauses, looking back at the blazing inferno behind her. Her heart breaks in her already-aching chest as she takes in the obscured ruin of her work, her business, her—

_Her plates._

Without them, she has nothing. Nothing of value, nothing to build with, nothing to bargain with. Without them, she’s starting over from scratch. 

She spins around, and Annie and Ruby are staring at her, crouching down in the corner of the alley behind the dumpster. Their faces are smeared with soot and sweat and tears, and they gape in horror and panic as they register Beth isn’t climbing through the window.

“Run,” she hisses, whipping her sweater up and off, nearly whimpering at the momentary relief of losing a layer in this oppressive, overwhelming heat. She ties it around her face as she backs away and drops back down on her hands and knees. The open window has released enough of the smoke that it’s a little clearer towards the floor again and she hurries towards the open doors of the back room.

She hears Ruby and Annie crying for her, but she doesn’t stop; she can’t lose those plates.

Crawling deeper into the shop is like climbing into a Hellmouth. The fire’s been blazing here the longest and even with the doors open, the room’s trapped a bulk of the smoke and heat. The shop she’d known is lost in a featureless cloud of grey and black and red and orange. Sweat is pouring down her face, coating her back, soaking into the tops of her jeans. It’s dripping into her eyes, making them burn, so she closes them. It’s not like she can even see the ground she’s putting her hands down on at this point. 

As she crawls through hell, she can’t stop herself from wondering if she’s going to die here. She thinks of her kids, wishing she’d told them she loved them every moment of every day. She hopes and prays that Ruby and Annie are safe, that they ran, that they’ll be okay. As long as they’re okay, as long as she hasn’t brought them down with her, she can make peace with not making it out. She knows they’ll be there for the kids, that they’ll know what to do.

After that first frantic night back in the beginning, Beth made a point to keep her six month calendars up to date, delivering a fresh batch to Ruby and Annie like grim clockwork. It’s her insurance policy, what she has to do to justify being a mother while doing the work she does. Even if something happens to her, her kids will be taken care of.

Beth shakes her head, shifting her focus—when she gets out of here, she’s going to do everything in her power to make it safe to bring her kids home. 

She refuses to pick and choose between the pieces of the life she wants.

Beth tries to count out the steps in her head and calculate how far she has to go to get to the press. She cracks her eyes open, searching for any signpost to tell her how far she’s gone, how far she has left to go. The room seems darker than it did before and Beth can’t tell if that’s because the smoke is thicker or because the fire’s eaten through the fuel in here and is starting to die down. 

When she throws a hand out to her left, she finds nothing but empty space and, praying that means she’s reached the end of the work table, readjusts her course and crawls forward. Her hands and knees ache each time she brings them down on the concrete floor, her body feels heavy and strange, and her head’s swimming. 

As she throws all of her energy and focus into forcing herself forward, her walls crumble, and she finds herself thinking of Rio. It seems so stupid now: all of the things she’d left unsaid between them, all of the things she’d been okay with ignoring, all of the things she’d pretended weren’t there. 

Here in this ghostly world of black and white and fire, all of the hurt and hate and fear seems so small, so flimsy. They’re such silly things to hold so close, to keep between them, to hide behind. Beth thinks of how he’d looked at her that afternoon in her bedroom, of the light in his eyes, the softness in his touch. 

She sees with a kind of clarity she doesn’t know she’d be capable of achieving outside the knife's edge of life and death that there’d been something real between them, something that only needed space and time to grow. She’d been thinking the night in Rio’s loft was when the death knell sounded between them—and not just because of the bullets—but now she wonders if it went further back than that. If it rang out months ago when he was in her bed and she declared their partnership done, over.

For a moment, the acrid taste of the burning plastic and paper and gasoline coating her mouth and throat is washed away by bitter, aching regret. She wishes with a desperation that makes her hands fist and her breath catch more than it already is that she'll make it out of this and find a way to fix it.

Beth finds the press by banging her head against it, stumbling back when the red hot metal meets her forehead. She can tell from the glow cutting through the smoke that the pages they’d just printed are a pile of burning embers, if not still on fire. She can also tell from the throbbing blister forming on her forehead that she’s not going to be able to work the release lever with her bare hands if she wants to get to the plates.

Pressing her face to the ground, Beth takes a deep breath, absorbing as much of the dwindling oxygen as she can. She holds her breath as she yanks her sweater off of her head and wraps it around her hand before fumbling for the lever. She can feel the material heat instantly as she wraps her hand around the release and tries to remember whether polyester ignites or melts under high heat.

The release pops, and she grabs the plates, keeping her sweater between her skin and the metal, hoping the heat hasn’t caused them to warp or melt, but she can’t see enough to check. Her lungs hit a new degree of burn, and she presses her face to the floor again, trying to take the cleanest breath she can. Without her sweater to act as a filter, every inhale feels like there's hot, broken glass filling her lungs, somehow both molten and sharp at the same time. She tries to breathe in as slowly and smoothly as she can, not wanting to choke.

Increasingly dizzy and disoriented, Beth shuffles on her knees in the direction she’s pretty sure is the way to the back door, not letting herself entertain the idea that it might not be. 

She dimly wonders if anyone has called the fire department yet. If firefighters are going to burst in at any moment to rescue her, only to cuff her when they catch her with counterfeit printing plates. The potential for tragic irony makes her laugh, and she immediately regrets it when she lets go of the breath she’s holding and automatically inhales to replace it. 

The coughing fit is immediate, sending her whole body into convulsions, and she falls forward. Beth throws out a bruised and battered hand, trying to catch herself but her strength is running low and the impact is too much; she overbalances and crashes face first into the floor. She feels her cheek split upon impact with the rough concrete but keeps a tight grip on the plates.

Gasping for oxygen that’s harder and harder to find, Beth forces herself back up and forward, fighting against the pain and exhaustion and fear and desperation. There’s a creeping, crawling, suffocating hopelessness that’s shrouding her and making it harder and harder to keep going. 

Beth’s already weeping when she finds the stairs, but she still manages to cry harder at the confirmation she’d chosen the right direction. Her arms shake and muscles burn as she hauls herself up, colliding with the glass panes and wood frame of the back door—the only thing left between herself and freedom, oxygen, _life._

Riding a final burst of fierce hope and wild adrenaline, Beth reaches for the doorknob, forgetting herself, and grasps it with her bare hand. The hoarse, animal howl she lets out when her exposed skin wraps around the white-hot metal, is loud enough that it cuts through the monotonous roar of the fire, disorienting her even further. She leaves what feels like half her hand behind when she lets go of the knob and curls the mangled appendage to her chest. She presses herself against the door like she can force it open with the weight of her body, but of course, it holds fast.

The last of her adrenaline flares and fades away, eaten up by the pain, leaving only a throbbing, scorching ache Beth can feel in every cell of her body. It supersedes every other cut and bruise and ache she’s accumulated in the endless trek through the shop. 

The darkness creeping into her vision is definitely oxygen deprivation now, and Beth leans her head against the glass. Her shoulders sag as her remaining strength ebbs away, and she realizes she’s made it to the end. There’s nowhere left for her to go.

She can feel her pulse kick up a notch as the rest of her lets go. Her eyes fall close, and she sees her children's faces, shouting, smiling, laughing over a family dinner, racing through the park. She sees the first time she held each of them close, delicate and small and so, so precious. She sees Ruby and Annie clinking glasses with her; the circumstances are always different, but the joy and love between them is the same. She sees Rio looking down at her, eyes dark and intense, running a finger softly along the edge of her face.

Beth wraps herself in these memories and a sense of peace steals over her, velvet and warm and safe. She may not have been done, may still have had so much left she wanted to do, to see, to feel, but the life she’s lived was a good one, and she’s glad to have that knowledge to comfort her here at the end. 

She takes a breath, but there’s nothing in it to sustain her, only ash and embers.

This is it, then.

A sudden impact rattles her head against the glass, and Beth’s eyes snap open, taking longer than they should to focus, to see what startled her.

Annie’s face is pressed up against the other side of the door, millimeters from Beth, and she’s saying something, but Beth can’t make it out through the fog that’s wrapped around her eyes and ears. Annie slaps a hand against the glass, and the shock clears Beth’s mind just enough that she sees Annie pointing up at Ruby, who’s trying to turn the knob from their side. The door must be locked.

It takes a long, long moment for the significance of that to break through, but when it does, it’s like the sun rising.

The door is locked from the inside.

Beth can unlock it.

She starts to reach for the lock with the hand that isn’t a senseless mass of burning agony, but realizes she still has the plates clamped tight, and she doesn’t seem to be able to make her fingers unclench to let go of them.

Annie’s hammering against the door now, and Beth can see that she’s sobbing. That wakes her up a little bit more, giving her the strength to uncurl her destroyed hand, to reach out and grasp the lock with her fingertips. It takes everything she has—she even finds some reserves she didn’t know existed within her—but Beth manages to flip the lock.

The second she does, Ruby and Annie shove the door open, forcing Beth back; she tumbles down the stairs, but she barely feels the impact. Then they’re hauling her up and out, and she dimly registers a sharp drop in temperature, blessedly cool air kissing her bare skin, but she still isn’t breathing, and the darkness returns to close in around her.

Someone’s tilting her chin up and pressing their mouth against hers, forcing air into her; someone's hands are coming down hard on her rib cage, violently demanding her lungs begin breathing again.

Then suddenly Beth’s coughing and choking and gasping. It burns and aches and feels like she’s bleeding from the inside out, but there’s oxygen in there too, and it’s the best thing she’s ever felt or tasted in her life.

When they see she’s inhaling on her own, Ruby and Annie haul her up, wrapping themselves around her and each other. The three of them cling together, desperate and sharp like barnacles on a ship's hull trying to survive a deep ocean hurricane, pressing themselves as close to each other as they can get. 

Beth has no idea how long they stay like that, but it’s long enough that she’s starting to become aware of her body again, and she wishes she weren’t, because oh _god,_ it _hurts._ She’s sure she’s holding a supernova in her hand and try as she might, she can’t drop it, can’t escape it, can’t get away from it. The only thing keeping her from collapsing and curling her body around it like an animal protecting its soft places is Ruby and Annie refusing to let her go even when she squirms. 

She realizes she can hear properly again when she registers sirens in the distance getting louder as they come closer. 

Reality hits Beth like a lightning bolt, bringing her all the way back to herself with a snap. They’re about to have police and firemen and all manner of curious bystander surrounding them. Immediately following that realization is the one where she remembers the remaining evidence of their crimes laying right there on the ground beside them, wrapped in what she now sees is the smoldering, melted remains of what was once her sweater.

Beth shivers, abruptly reminded she's sitting in the parking lot in her bra.

With renewed strength, she pushes Annie and Ruby away, her heart aches at the desperate whimper Annie lets out, but they have to act fast. Annie refuses to let all the way go, sitting back on her heels, but keeping a tight grip on Beth’s arm like their physical connection is the only thing keeping her upright. 

“We—” Beth breaks off, coughing. The pain from trying to use her vocal cords is so acute that when it mixes with the inferno in her hand, she thinks she might throw up. She grabs the plates instead and waves them around. Annie looks blank, but Ruby catches on immediately.

“My car’s closer,” Ruby says, her own voice hoarse and ragged from smoke damage, grabbing the plates and snatching her hand back when they burn her. Beth readjusts her grip so Ruby can grab them by the shredded remains of her turtleneck.

When Ruby stands up, she takes the soft warmth of her body with her, and Beth flinches as the air hits her. Annie finally lets go to strip off her jacket and the t-shirt underneath, thrusting the second article at Beth.

She smiles gratefully and tugs the shirt on, clumsy with only one hand to work with. It was just baggy enough on Annie that she won't have to put forth much effort to squeeze herself into it. 

“Damn, bitch.” Annie’s voice is raspy with smoke damage, but the familiar spark in it lifts Beth’s heart. 

She gently pushes her other arm through the sleeve and looks up to see Annie zipping herself into her jacket, staring at Beth's neck and shoulders with wide, slightly alarmed eyes. 

“Do you guys have, like, a leech kink?” she asks, shoving herself up and bending down to help Beth stand. 

When they’re both vertical, Beth staggers a little, her knees not up to the task of supporting her full weight yet. Annie ducks under her arm, wrapping herself around Beth and shoring her up. 

“I’m not judging or anything,” Annie continues. “I just didn’t see it coming. I always figured I’d be the freaky one, but you’re putting me to shame these days.”

Beth wraps her good arm around Annie and leans on her, squeezing her tight. Annie squeezes right back, just as hard.

Then Ruby’s back, wrapping herself around both of them from Beth’s other side. The three of them stand together, holding each other and breathing, as the Paper Porcupine continues to burn, and the emergency response vehicles come screeching into the parking lot on the other side of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me for a technically Rio-free chapter. I promise I'll make it up to you and in the meantime, you can always yell at me about it on [tumblr](https://mego42.tumblr.com/).


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let’s get something straight,” Annie begins. “When people look at Beth and me, I know what they see. I’m the walking disaster who makes the terrible choices and Beth’s the fixer who cleans up after me—”
> 
> “That’s not—” Beth tries to break in.
> 
> “It’s true and we both know it,” Annie says, waving Beth off. “But the thing that most people don’t realize is Beth’s also a disaster—“
> 
> “Hey!” Beth exclaims, but this time Annie ignores her entirely, though the corner of Rio’s mouth twitches.
> 
> “—her self preservation instincts are trash and that...” Annie pauses, taking a fortifying breath. “That includes whatever’s happening here with you.”
> 
> “My instincts aren’t _trash,”_ Beth mutters to herself, resigned to this conversation continuing with or without her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I say this every chapter because it continues to be true, I would be lost without [nickmillerscaulk](https://nickmillerscaulk.tumblr.com/) <3 <3 <3

“I don’t need a wheelchair, Annie.” 

The words come out raspy and low, there’s a dull ache beneath them that Beth knows signals a world of pain when the drugs wear off. It matches her throbbing hand, the second-degree burns decorating the palm and fingers hidden beneath so many layers of gauze it looks like cotton candy. 

All things considered, Beth’s incredibly lucky. Lucky she used her sweater as a filter for most of her time in the fire, lucky she let go of the doorknob as quickly as she did, lucky Annie and Ruby pulled her out when they did. 

The hospital told her as little as two more minutes could’ve told an entirely different story. 

_Miraculously unscathed_ was the phrase the first nurse had used. She’d told Beth she must have someone looking out for her and Beth laughed so hard she cried—the tears dripping off her chin black from the soot still smeared across her face—at the idea she had some cosmic force looking out for her. 

Still, the knowledge of how close a call it was burns in her heart like a tiny star, leaving her too aware of herself and uncomfortably restless with it. Like her skin’s a wool sweater she’s outgrown just enough that she can wear it, but it doesn’t fit right and it itches and there’s nothing she can do about it. 

“It’s not about _needing_ the wheelchair,” Annie says, wiggling it at Beth. “It’s about taking _advantage_ of the opportunity the wheelchair presents.”

“Oh yeah?” Beth asks, sitting on the edge of the bed, foot propped up and struggling with an untied sneaker. “What’s that?”

“—don’t want her bringing that to our _house,”_ Stan’s voice spikes, the whispered argument he’s having with Ruby outside the emergency room stall temporarily audible. 

Beth flushes and swallows hard, wincing as it irritates her throat. In hindsight, she doesn’t know why she’s surprised. There wasn’t a version of this where her relationship with Stan wasn’t a casualty of the road she’s led them all down.

“Letting me steer for once in our lives,” Annie continues, her voice a little too loud, a little too jovial, like she can block out what’s happening behind the curtain through force of will.

“—doesn’t _have_ anyone else, Stanley!” 

And _oh._ The simple truth in Ruby’s words is a knife sliding neatly, cleanly between her ribs, leaving an aching, lonely wound in its wake.

Annie shifts her weight awkwardly, letting go of the chair and sitting down next to Beth, taking over tying her shoe.

“Hey,” Annie whispers, nudging her shoulder against Beth’s leg. “You have me.”

Instead of answering, Beth wraps an arm around Annie’s shoulders in a sideways hug, leaning her cheek against the top of her head. 

“Alright, let’s get out of here,” Ruby says, pushing through the curtains. Beth can see Stan over her shoulder, jaw tight, but he just shakes his head and strides away. “You know they’re charging by the minute.”

It’s true, the last time Beth had been in an emergency room was when Kenny broke his arm falling out of the playhouse, and she’ll never forget the astronomical facility fee they’d been charged simply for being there. She could barely afford it back then, and that was before things had gone all the way bad. She shudders to think of the bill waiting for her over this trip.

“Listen,” Beth says, sliding off the bed, wobbling a little, but pleased with how quickly she stabilizes. She grabs the tote with the change of clothes and toiletries Ruby made Stan bring her—the impetus for their hallway argument—and stuffs the bag of pills and bandages and instructions the hospital had given her inside. “I think it’s a better idea if I go back to my—”

“Bitch, please,” Ruby cuts her off. “I know they’ve got you on the good drugs, but that’s crazy talk. You’re not going back to your house alone tonight.”

“It’s fine,” Beth says, waving a hand, hoping it comes off as carefree, like the thought of her empty mausoleum of a house doesn’t open up a yawning pit in her stomach. “I’m just going to take a bath and go to bed. I’m exhausted.”

That part isn’t a lie, the events of the past 36 hours weigh heavy on her and turn her bones to lead—the weight at odds with the itchy, unsatisfied agitation prowling like an animal under her skin. 

All she wants is to wash off enough of the soot and ash that she can crawl into bed and sleep until something wakes her. All she wants is to tear at her hair and scream and scream and scream until she has nothing left, and her mind is quiet.

Beth’s very careful to keep all of this off her face, not wanting to worry Ruby or Annie any more than she already has.

“Whatever you say, B,” Ruby says with an over-the-top patronizing edge, so Beth knows she’s just humoring her. Beth doesn’t push it—she can always call a Lyft later when Ruby’s putting the kids to bed.

Outside, the soft and golden light of the sodium lamps spread throughout the parking lot mix with the silvery glow of the waxing quarter moon above them. The color combination against the dark sky grabs Beth by the throat, her eyes blur, and for a second she’s right back in the Paper Porcupine. 

The hospital had given her something for anxiety to keep her calm while they did the bronchoscopy, and it must be wearing off faster than the painkillers, because she can feel her heart beating harder and faster as she struggles to force back the memory.

Beth’s hand throbs and head aches. She feels like an open wound, bleeding out all of the things she’s been violently suppressing to keep them from rising too close to the surface. The fight in Rio's loft, the whirlwind trip to Canada, the Bruno destruction in her _kitchen_ —she can see it all flickering in the corner of her mind’s eye, a film reel on fast-forward. All of the trauma blends together into a cacophonous howl she’s holding at bay by the skin of her teeth. 

A night breeze kisses her cheeks, cool and soothing, turning down the volume just enough that Beth can pull herself together. She takes a long, deep breath, letting the clean air fill her lungs.

She sets her jaw in what she hopes is a reassuring smile, even if it feels to her more like a locked jaw grimace. From the way Annie and Ruby are eyeing her, she doesn’t think she’s doing the best job, but it’s good enough that they let it go.

Annie sidles up and hooks her arm through Beth’s—though the way she clings might be less for Beth's benefit than her own. Stan’s struggling with Harry’s booster seat and Ruby’s clearing the backseat of the usual assorted debris family cars mysteriously collect, to make room for Beth and Annie. 

The domesticity of the picture—the way they both instinctively know the steps to the dance of their lives—burrows under Beth’s skin. She feels like a discordant note, a misplaced fragment from a different song whose key doesn’t quite match any more. Beth looks away, unable to bear it.

She sees the Mercedes first.

It’s parked back in the farthest part of the lot, the boxy lines illuminated by the moonlight. She can just barely make out a familiar silhouette leaned up against the front of it, a slightly darker point in the shadow it casts.

The atmosphere shifts and retunes itself around Beth. She feels her breath leave her body in a rush, replaced by something humming at a new frequency in her bones.

She can’t see his eyes, his face, anything other than the shape of him—but she knows he’s watching her, knows he sees her. 

She feels her pulse rushing in her veins, singing _alive, alive, alive_ to the beat of her heart.

She takes a step towards him before she realizes she’s decided to move, then stops, remembering herself. 

“I—“ Beth clears her throat, eyes darting to Annie and Ruby. “I think I’m going to…” she trails off, entirely at a loss for how to explain herself. 

She’s been so careful to keep the Beth that works for Rio separate from the Beth that wants Rio in front of the girls, using one to hide the other. She has no idea how to reconcile the two of them without fielding endless questions and explanations. For a shameful instant, a tiny, resentful part of her imagines walking off without saying anything at all.

“What are you talking about?” Annie frowns at her, following her line of sight, trying to see what she’s reacting to. “Goddamn those drugs are...Beth, _no.”_

“You cannot be serious!” Annie lets go to give herself room to properly stare Beth down. “What could you possibly have to talk to him about that can’t wait until tomorrow? Or next week!”

It’s a fair question, and truth be told, Beth could probably ignore him and get in Ruby’s car and go home. 

If she did, what follows would go one of two ways: either he’d show up unannounced at her house later or he’d get mad and disappear, leaving her texts unread and calls unanswered in a fit of spite. She’d have just enough time to lose the clarity she feels tonight, for her courage to fail her, and she’d rationalize herself right out of what she knows she wants. 

Then, by the time he’d rematerialize, they’d go right back to taking one step forward and two steps back—an endless game of cat and mouse so familiar it’s a muscle memory at this point, neither one of them willing to be the first to drop their walls, to give way, to let the other win.

But the truth is this: the fire has changed Beth in the same way a lightning strike will turn sand to glass. It’s fused her jagged and disparate pieces into something new and raw and delicate. 

She almost died earlier tonight, made peace with thinking she was going to die earlier tonight. She remembers the epiphany she’d had in the fire with nearly excruciating clarity and the thought of going back, of playing games, is utterly repellent. 

She remembers how gently Rio held her hands in her kitchen, telling her to breathe. She remembers how he stayed the night to keep her safe. She looks across the lot to him waiting for her, quiet and still.

Beth’s exquisitely aware that this might be the worst idea she’s ever had.

“What’s happening?” Ruby asks, straightening up out of the back seat, one of Harry’s Transformers in her hand. 

“Beth’s losing what’s left of her mind.”

“What are you—” Ruby asks, following Annie’s flailing hand. “Oh.”

“Baby, what’s happening?” Stan pokes his head up out of the car and Beth marvels at how quickly this is turning into a circus. 

“Egg roll,” Ruby tells him and in a miracle of miracles, he only casts a wary look between the three of them before ducking back into the car.

“Babe, are you sure?” Ruby asks, her eyes searching Beth’s face. Whatever she finds there has her sighing and closing her eyes for a long moment before nodding. 

“So we’re just, what? Going to let her trot from one near-death experience to another?” Annie hisses with frustration and disbelief. “I expect that kind of dumbassery from someone who’s only been fucking Deansie her whole life, but from you?”

Beth sputters, and Ruby doesn’t bother replying, simply levels an unimpressed look at Annie before turning back. 

“Are you _sure?_ ” she asks again. Beth's pretty certain from the emphasis Ruby's asking about more than whether or not she’s getting a ride, but either way, the answer's the same. 

Beth nods, and Ruby huffs, shaking her head, but steps forward anyway and wraps her arms around Beth. 

“Hate you,” Beth whispers, hugging her close. She can still smell the smoke and ash and char of the store on Ruby’s skin, and for a moment, they’re back in the fire, up against the wall together. Beth flinches. 

“Hate your face,” Ruby whispers back, squeezing Beth tight.

“I cannot believe _I’m_ the voice of reason here,” Annie says as they break apart, hands on her hips and disgust all over her face.

“You’ve got the—” Beth starts, darting a glance at Stan.

Ruby rolls her eyes. “Yes, I have them. I will hold on to them. _Please_ don’t do anything stupid.”

With a wry smile and a shrug, Beth turns to Annie, intending to hug her too. Annie takes a step back, waving her arms between them to ward Beth off. “Oh no, if you’re doing this, I’ve got some _things_ to say.”

She turns on her heel and takes off across the parking lot. With a last grateful look to Ruby, Beth follows, deeply apprehensive over what could happen without her there to play referee.

“What’s happening?” Beth hears Stan ask again as she hurries away. “Who is that?”

“Egg. Roll.” Ruby repeats with heavy emphasis. 

Halfway across the lot, the righteous steam powering Annie seems to stutter, and she slows down, falling into step with Beth. 

“Fucking figures he’d park all the way over there and not even try to help,” she grumbles.

Beth doesn’t know how to tell Annie it’s better this way—that she needs to walk, to move, to feel the ground steady under her feet. She doesn’t think she could stand it if Rio parked closer, if he tried to help her, if he thought she needed it. 

Then, she’s close enough to make out his face, make out the way his jaw tightens and his fists burrow deeper into the pockets of his jacket as he takes her in.

Rio doesn’t say anything as she comes to a stop in front of him, and neither does she. Beth can see the gleam of the overhead lights in his eyes as his gaze sweeps over her, caressing her face as tangibly as his fingertips used to.

“I’ll be short this week,” Beth says. It’s not what she intended to open with, but she was never going to find the right words anyway, so this is good enough, she supposes.

He looks away, wielding that not-smile he uses as a shield to keep her at arms length when she says something that pisses him off more than he can hide from her. “Yeah, I figured.”

“I do not understand this at all,” Annie breaks in, reminding Beth she’s there. 

When Annie sees she’s drawn Rio’s attention, she squares her shoulders and sets her jaw, stepping slightly in front of Beth, almost like a guard dog. 

The corner of his mouth twitches, the raw edges he’d shown Beth when she approached smoothed over and mild. He straightens up off the front of the car, mirroring Annie’s posture by widening his stance, then clasping his hands behind his back like he’s getting ready to negotiate. He nods at Annie, granting her the opening gambit. 

Beth is deeply, oddly charmed at the display. 

“Let’s get something straight,” Annie begins. “When people look at Beth and me, I know what they see. I’m the walking disaster who makes the terrible choices and Beth’s the fixer who cleans up after me—”

“That’s not—” Beth tries to break in.

“It’s true and we both know it,” Annie says, waving Beth off. “But the thing that most people don’t realize is Beth’s also a disaster—“

“Hey!” Beth exclaims, but this time Annie ignores her entirely, though the corner of Rio’s mouth twitches up again.

“—her self preservation instincts are trash and that...” Annie pauses, taking a fortifying breath. “That includes whatever’s happening here with you.”

“My instincts aren’t _trash_ ,” Beth mutters to herself, resigned to this conversation continuing with or without her. 

“You’re the scariest motherfucker I know,” Annie says. “And I hate that she’s into it, and I hate that she almost _died_ because you dragged her into your scary motherfucker world.”

Any and all hints of amusement have dropped away from Rio’s face. The smooth, impenetrable mask is back in place, but Beth’s learned how to read him. She’s intimately acquainted with the rage burning behind those hooded eyes, hidden in the way he rolls his shoulders with the languid grace of an apex predator. She’s been on the receiving end of it often enough.

“He didn’t—”

“Shut _up_ , Beth,” Annie snaps. “Let me say this.”

Beth snaps her mouth shut, gritting her teeth. For as annoying as this speech is, she can see it’s important to her sister and the least she can do is let her get it out.

“But,” Annie continues, voice wobbling when she turns back to Rio, some animal instinct sensing how thin the ice she’s waded onto has become. “Because you are such a scary motherfucker, and because you’re also weirdly into my sister for reasons I will, quite frankly, never understand—“

“Okay, that’s enough—“

“—I know that you will shoot anyone that comes after her right in the face, probably before she even knows she’s in trouble. So I _guess_ I’m okay with this happening right now.” 

Annie pauses, swallows hard, then steps right up into Rio’s space, poking him in the chest. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Rio’s carved in granite as he studies her, and for a moment, Annie seems to quail under the weight of his attention, but she rallies and straightens back up. Beth holds her breath, tensing to do...something, she’s not sure what, if this gets out of hand.

After a long moment, Rio nods slowly. “A’ight.”

“Okay,” Annie responds with a definitive nod before spinning on her heel to Beth, holding out a grabby hand. “Give me your phone.”

“What?” Beth asks, startled enough that she fishes it out of her pocket—grateful it hadn’t been broken or left behind in the fire—without waiting for an answer.

“Find My Friends,” Annie says, thumbing at the screen.

“Here, let me—”

“Bitch, I know your code,” Annie says, not looking up. “3-1-3-7, our phone number growing up. You’ve had it literally since phones started needing passcodes. Idiot.”

Beth sighs, glancing at Rio and away, embarrassed by the show they’re putting on for him. She shifts her weight and looks around the parking lot, wanting to hurry up and go home. 

“Here,” Annie says, shoving her phone back at her. “Find My Friends is _on.”_ She says the last word with extra emphasis, turning to eyeball Rio for a second.

“We’re just going back to the house,” Beth mutters, rolling her eyes, but once again, she’s ignored in favor of the two of them sizing each other up. 

Then Annie turns back to Beth, flinging her arms around her and hugging her tight, Beth’s arms automatically come up in return. 

“I’d say don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, but we’re so far past that, I’m actually impressed,” Annie says into Beth’s chest. When she breaks away, she turns back to Rio, pointing V-ed fingers at her eyes then at him as she starts backing away. 

“I’m watching you, gang friend,” she says, before spinning around and jogging back towards Ruby and Stan.

Beth closes her eyes, almost afraid to look at Rio’s reaction to Annie’s parting words. But when she does, he’s looking after her like she’s some kind of fascinating, definitely-confusing-but-ultimately-amusing creature.

Then he looks back to Beth, his eyes sweeping over her, up and down, and the lightness drops out of his face like a stone. “Get in the car, Elizabeth.” 

He turns on his heel, not waiting to see what Beth does, and she sighs. He may have kept a tight grip on his anger in front of Annie, but it’s still roiling beneath his skin. She considers balking out of habit, a token protest to push his buttons, more reflex than intention. 

But she’s trying not to play their old game right now, so she gets in the car, mollified to be greeted by a single arched eyebrow when she settles into the passenger seat without protest.

He doesn’t say anything, just starts the car and pulls out of the lot. Though Rio’s slouched back in the seat, one hand on the wheel, tension radiates from the set of his shoulders, underscored by his white-knuckled grip.

Beth drums her fingers on her knee, casting about for something, anything, to say. To break the loaded, heavy silence wrapping around them. 

“How did you know…” she says eventually, before trailing off, unsure how to end the question. 

_Where to find me, that something happened, that I needed you._

“Closest hospital to the store,” Rio bites out through a clenched jaw, answering the least complicated of the potential questions, as if she’d chosen one and said it aloud. 

“But how—“ Beth stops, not knowing if she wants to hear the answer. He’s never sent Mick to guard her in public during the day, only at home and at night. If he had someone at the store during the day, it means that he’s still having her watched. That he doesn’t trust her. 

And why would he? Up until...god, only yesterday, things were almost as bad as they’d ever been between them. Just because she had a life-altering, near-death epiphany doesn’t mean anything’s changed.

The thought settles on her chest like a lead weight. What had she been _thinking?_

In answer to her aborted question, Rio pulls out his phone. He swipes through the lock screen to the messages, scrolling to a thread and opening a media file all without looking away from the road. He does it with the kind of practiced familiarity that says he’s done it enough times that his thumb has memorized the path. 

He tosses the phone to Beth, who fumbles, clumsy with only one hand, more trapping it in her lap than catching it. She flips it over to see it’s a video of a building on fire. 

It’s the back door of the Paper Porcupine.

Beth watches, eyes wide, as a tiny Annie and a tiny Ruby beat against the back door, yanking it open and dragging out what looks like a dead body.

The screen wobbles as Beth realizes that’s her. 

The video was taken from far enough back that the roar of the fire she vividly remembers howling in her ears is a mere crackle, but close enough that she can hear Annie screaming Beth’s name over and over. The tiny speakers render it tinny and small, but the anguish still comes through.

It’s funny, Beth doesn’t remember that part. 

Then, that hateful voice, low and crooning, “I told you I was coming for your girl.”

The video holds for another second, Annie beating on a limp Beth’s chest, still yelling her name, but now it sounds more like sobbing. Ruby leans in to breathe into Beth’s mouth, and the video cuts to black. 

The phone trembles in Beth’s shaking hands. Compelled by something she can’t name, she hits replay. 

This time when she gets to Annie’s distorted sobs, she has to close her eyes even though that does nothing to block the sound. She hits replay again. 

“Don’t,” Rio says, so quiet Beth nearly misses it. 

“Don’t what?” she asks, hitting pause to hear him better, but he doesn’t say anything, only jerks his chin vaguely in her direction, and Beth realizes he doesn’t want her to play the video again. 

She closes out and sees it’s the only thing in the message thread. No history, no response. 

Beth shuts down his phone screen and hands it back to him, mind spinning in every direction. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” she says eventually. 

“What?”

“She—Mia, she said they’d be watching. That they’d shoot us if we tried to leave. But she was still there, and she let us go. Why?”

“I only took a chance on going out that way because I was out of options,” Beth continues, puzzling it out aloud more to herself than to Rio. “I’d hoped maybe they wouldn’t be watching the back or they’d have run when the fire got too big, too obvious.”

She pauses, rolling it around and around in her mind, trying to find the angle it made sense from. “Sticking around was stupid, risky. They were still pretty close, people would be coming out to watch, and they’d stand out in the strip. Why risk it?”

Rio laughs softly, a thread of something low and dangerous lacing through the sound.

“That’s the part that don’t make sense to you?” he asks, an edge hidden in the question. 

“Well, yeah,” she frowns. “What part doesn’t make sense to you?”

“Why were you in there all alone, Elizabeth?” That edge cuts between the syllables of her name, rendering them sharp and distinct. Beth’s shoulders tighten in response.

“I—the plates,“ she sputters, hating that he’s putting her on the defensive when grabbing them works in his favor nearly as much as hers. “I couldn’t leave them—“

He curses so quiet, it’s nearly under his breath, but so vicious that the rest of her sentence withers in her mouth.

“You—“ She hears the shrill spike of her voice and stops, snapping her mouth shut and breathing out through her nose, long and slow. “Can we not do this tonight?”

Any other night she wouldn’t have asked, wouldn’t have let him see the chink in her armor, especially not for such a pointless question. Rio’s only cut her a break once before, and that was a long time—and she doesn't even know how many betrayals—ago. So when he nods a short, jerky gesture, she can’t totally believe it. 

There’s something different about him tonight. He’s prickly and strange and absolutely furious, but it feels like it’s happening around her, not at her. Like he's a hurricane, and she's in the eye. 

They ride in silence for a minute before Beth breaks it again.

“I want to see my kids.”

He laughs that low, hard laugh again. “Yeah, that ain’t happening.”

“ _Excuse_ you—“ Her indignation makes her careless, and she coughs, coughs again. Abrupt, furious tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. 

“You can’t—“ she tries again when she catches her breath. 

“I ain’t doing shit,” he cuts her off. “You try to see them looking like you do, they’re gonna have nightmares ‘til they hit puberty.”

He brakes at a red light and turns to face her. The ambient glow from the streetlights illuminate the dark car enough to highlight the drawn, severe lines of his face. 

“Trus—” he breaks off, looking away and then back, rocking his jaw as he chews his way through his temper until he can swallow it back. “Wait ‘til you get cleaned up, yeah?”

Beth blinks, taken aback by the simple request, at how reasonable a compromise he’s proposed. The lack of demand, of expectation that she’ll make concessions. 

“Fine,” she nods, braced for the other shoe to drop. 

But Rio only looks at her for a long moment, eyes sweeping her face while his own gives her nothing—a completely neutral mask, blank to the point where she knows there’s a fault beneath the surface. He turns away as the light goes green, hitting the gas.

She looks around, only now registering that while she hasn’t been paying attention, he’s driven them downtown. She vaguely knows the neighborhood they’re in; it’s trendy and by the water, not far from the one she’d trailed him around months ago. But the building he’s slowing in front of, hitting a garage fob tucked into his visor before he pulls in, isn’t the one she’d followed him to.

“Where are we?” she asks, startled. She assumed they were going back to her house.

“My place,” he says through gritted teeth, tense like he’s waiting for an inevitable follow-up.

“Your…” she trails off, gaping at him, unable to grasp the enormity of what he’s telling her, her mind entirely short circuiting as she tries to make sense of it. 

“Is it safe?” she blurts out, mouth working independently of her brain as it works through a reboot. 

He whips his head around, insult and disbelief conveyed through the jut of his jaw.

“No, I mean,” Beth waves her good hand like she can literally clear the air. “Won’t she—what about Mia?”

Her voice lifts on the last word, higher than it needs to. It makes her feel fragile, exposed. She hates it, hates that she’s opened herself to his scorn.

But he doesn't smirk or sneer or laugh—any of the things he’s done every time she’s asked him to clarify the boundaries of their relationship. Instead, he shakes his head. “She don’t know where I live.”

“But—” Beth snaps her mouth shut, swallowing her question and wincing as it agitates her throat. 

“No reason for her to.” 

Now it’s Beth’s turn to whip around, eyes wide at his muttered words. He doesn’t look at her, seemingly concentrating harder than he needs to as he smoothly backs into a numbered spot.

She thinks of the lack of history in that text thread. It’s not like Beth and Rio have lengthy conversations over text, but she could still scroll back through months and months of terse, then not so terse, then terse again exchanges. She thinks of the way he’s never actually explained his relationship with Mia, beyond the barest hints of their origin story. She thinks of the peculiar way he smiled at her when she tried to subtly pry more information out of him. 

It’s possible she’s jumped to some conclusions.

But before she can chase the thought, he’s switching gears into park and sliding out, antsy and impatient, nearly vibrating with ruthlessly banked kinetic energy. 

He’s nervous, she realizes. Or no, not nervous, he’s uncomfortable, more agitated than she thinks she’s ever seen him. He’s—he’s inviting her into his space, and it means something, she thinks, though she doesn’t know exactly what. She sees the way he’s grinding his teeth, the way his gaze flits to her and away again and knows that it costs him something to have her here.

The realization that he’s not taking back his offer soothes her, and she has to look away, to hide the smile threatening to steal across her face with a curtain of her hair as she unbuckles herself and slides down out of the car.

He brought her home.

***

Rio’s new loft is bigger than his old one. 

The previously high ceilings and industrial columns had been replaced by a two and a half shot space with nearly floor to ceiling windows taking up a whole wall running the length of the place. Right now, they offer a stunning view of Detroit at night, lights glittering and veins of nighttime traffic rushing like shimmering rivers cutting through the black. In the daytime, Beth imagines they fill the space with bright, natural light.

Rio flicks on two switches by the door, and two corresponding clusters of exposed Edison bulbs light up, casting a warm, golden glow. They dangle from the high ceilings above a low, black leather couch in the living room area and above a massive black granite-topped island in the kitchen.

Similar to the old loft, the space serves as one great room with the kitchen, dining, and living areas blending seamlessly together. However, here there are a few rooms off the kitchen, underneath an open staircase that zigzags up to a lofted area overlooking the main room and up to yet another level that leads to a door with roof access. 

Beth’s jaw drops. She’d been impressed by Rio’s last place but this one takes it to the next level. The effortlessly cool industrial space filled with an intriguing mix of modern and antique pieces was such an antithesis to her own homey, cluttered nest it felt like another planet. She'd been unable to comprehend how he could keep it at that level of pristine with a kid anywhere near it. 

She doesn’t recognize any specific elements here, but it has the same feel. Hardwood floors set on a bias, scuffed and marked by history stretch from end to end, but the kitchen is filled with almost brutally modern stainless steel appliances. He’s finished it with minimalist gestural art again—the shapes and colors somehow subtle and deeply evocative at the same time. And there’s a surprising number of plants scattered on shelves and tables and potted on the floor, making Beth wonder who takes the time to care for them. 

The new loft fills her with a familiar somber, wistful feeling. Like she’s standing on the edge of something she thought she understood but is now discovering is as vast and unknowable as the depths of the ocean. Like she doesn’t know if it’s possible to ever truly unlock its secrets, and she’s only just finding out how badly she wants to try.

“It’s big,” she says, wincing at her own inanity. 

“Three months in a hotel room, I wanted some space.”

She hears him come closer and tenses, waiting for him to continue, to remind her he was there because of her. But he doesn’t say anything, only brushes past her towards the kitchen area where he grabs a glass and a bottle off their respective shelves. 

Beth steps up to the island, wary and waiting. This tentative truce can’t last, not when he’s so tense she can nearly feel it radiating off of him like the calm before a storm. Not when she’s strung tighter than a piano wire, the intimacy of every moment spent in his space tuning her to her breaking point. Not when their history is a mostly-uncharted minefield stretched out for miles and miles between them. 

Rio pours himself a finger of what looks like gin and downs it before pouring another. 

Beth looks around, distracted by a glimpse of bright color out of the corner of her eye. She wanders over to peek in the first room off the kitchen, and her heart lurches when she sees a larger recreation of Marcus’ bedroom.

“I don't—” Beth breaks off, not sure exactly what she wants to say. When she turns back to face Rio, he’s watching her, wary and braced like she’s a wild animal loose in his house, and he’s trying to figure out how best to minimize the damage she might cause. 

“I don’t understand how you can pack up and move with no warning,” she tries again, gesturing at Marcus’ room, so like his old room but entirely new. “I can’t imagine being able to cut ties like that.”

Her house is her whole life; the things she’s filled it with are the threads she’s used to weave the tapestry that tells her story. It’s been her world for so long that it’s become an extension of her self. It’s so bound up with her identity, she can’t conceive of packing it up and leaving it behind. 

Rio cocks his head, frowning a little like he doesn’t understand the question, and maybe he doesn’t—she doesn’t know what she’s fishing for either.

“How does it work with Marcus?”

“They’re just things, yeah?” Rio shrugs. “He knows that.”

It stings a little that he can be so detached. And maybe _that’s_ what Beth was looking for, a reminder that while he may have invited her into his space, it doesn’t hold the same meaning to him as it does to her. 

Beth turns away. She doesn’t know how much shows on her face, but she knows she doesn’t want to risk him seeing any of it. She pushes open the second door to a small bathroom, charmed to find a _Where The Wild Things Are_ shower curtain hung around a freestanding tub with a copper shower extension.

“Can I, um…” Beth trails off, not wanting to say ‘shower’—it seems too intimate—and feeling silly for her hesitance. 

“Shower upstairs has more room,” Rio says, his gaze heavy and tangible on her skin. 

Beth feels her blush not so much spread as burst instantaneously across every inch of her skin.

Being here makes her feel surrounded by him, like he’s wrapped around her and sinking into her pores. Even trying as hard as she can to not get ahead of herself, to shut it down—she’s injured, fresh out of the ER, for god’s sake—she can’t stop herself from thinking of him, of _them_.

She thinks maybe she sees him lick his lips, but she might’ve imagined it.

“Okay,” Beth clears her throat, wincing a little at the ache she’d almost forgotten. “I...towel?”

He nods but doesn’t move for a moment, then tosses back the rest of his drink.

Beth’s pulse hammers hard enough in her throat as he makes his way towards her, that she wonders if it’s visible through her skin. He comes close enough that she can feel the heat of him against her. Her breathing goes shallow, and her eyes flutter, but he only twists, sliding past her into the bathroom to open a small—ruthlessly organized, a part of her notes with a flutter—linen closet, pulling out a towel.

Right. She’d _just_ asked for one and then stood there like a lunatic blocking his way. She nearly trips over herself, moving out of the doorway, and her blush flares when he looks her up and down, a smirk curling around the corner of his mouth. 

Beth follows him up the stairs to the lofted, open bedroom. She keeps her eyes averted from the wide, plush bed that takes up most of the space on her way to the bathroom beyond it, clutching her bag to her chest like a shield—from what, she isn’t exactly sure, possibly the memories of the last time she’d been in his bedroom, the game they played, the way he looked at her, how sure she’d been that he was going to kiss her before he shattered the moment and tossed her out.

The last thought dims the warmth kindling in her core. She shakes her head, trying to dislodge the memory. 

Without saying a word, Rio turns on the lights to reveal more dim, golden lighting—which is beautiful but somewhat useless for a bathroom—and shuts the door behind her.

That’s that, then. 

Beth lets out a heavy sigh, dropping her towel and bag on the vast stone countertop complete with big, white his and hers farmhouse sinks and more copper piping. Like the rest of the loft, the bathroom is a stylishly eclectic mix of sophisticated and vintage. Dark subway tiles pave the wall behind the vanity, broken up by a large, wood-framed mirror and offset by the stone floor that matches the pale countertop. A platform tub and oversized shower, complete with a built-in wooden bench, share the opposite wall. The wooden beams enclosing the wide, deep tub mirror the trim lining the walls and floor of the shower. 

He’s put more plants in here, and there’s a skylight overhead, dark now but large enough that during the day it would fill the space with light to illuminate the rich reds and deep blues of the gracefully worn-in, geometrically patterned runner rug spread across the floor.

Shaking it off, she pulls Annie’s t-shirt over her head, awkward and clumsy with only the one hand to work with. She turns towards the mirror and stops, the shirt falling to the floor from abruptly nerveless fingers as she’s confronted with the past thirty-six hours mapped across her body.

A bruise spreads across her left shoulder in the shape of a shotgun barrel, hickeys are dotted across it, trailing up her neck where they mix with the smeared remains of soot and ash. The juxtaposition of marks and memories as stark on her skin as they are in her mind.

Her hair is clumped and matted from a mix of grime and sweat, and her face is flushed like she has a light sunburn—a side effect of the heat that the nurse assured her would fade by tomorrow. Her eyeliner and mascara have smeared, pooling under her eyes. Even though she’d tried to wipe herself off in the ER, there are still streaks trailing over the raw, red gash along one cheekbone and down to her chin. The big white bandage along her hairline, hiding the burn where her forehead met the printing press, shines like a beacon. 

Beth sees now why Rio laughed when she said she wanted to see her kids. 

Still, when the shock passes and she leans forward to study herself in closer detail, she decides it won’t be that bad once she cleans herself up. The bruise on her shoulder can be hidden by a shirt, and the only other visible injuries are her forehead and hand. She can make up a funny story to explain those. The hickeys are a little trickier, but if she FaceTimes, she can be careful with the angle. Maybe Rio has a throw or something she can wrap around herself. The kids won’t care, but Dean will be a pain in the ass about it, and the thought of having to deal with him is preemptively exhausting.

Beth struggles longer than she’d like to admit trying to unbutton her jeans one-handed, but when those are off, she’s able to get out of her bra and panties with little trouble. Maybe the nurse was right, and some small things are working in her favor, because trying to do this with her dominant hand out of commission would be impossible.

Once in the shower, there’s some awkward maneuvering with Rio’s shampoo, but eventually, she gives up on trying to keep the bandage on her forehead dry and it gets a little easier. She makes it all the way through washing up, manages to dry herself off, and even wriggles back into her clothes—sending a silent thank you to Stan for grabbing sweatpants and a loose scoop neck tee, easier to get in and out of than button up pajamas—but when she shakes out the bag of supplies the hospital gave her, she hits a snag.

She’s peeled the wet bandage off of her forehead, exposing a bright red, blistered slash. The nurse told her she needs to refresh the layer of anti-bacterial gel when she changes the dressing, but she can’t get the cap off the tube one-handed. She tries bracing it in her armpit, the crook of her bad arm, even holding it down on the counter with her elbow so she can twist, but it’s on tight, and she can’t get a grip that’ll get it unstuck without squirting it everywhere.

Not only that, but she’s due to take a pain pill soon, and she already knows she’s going to run into the same problem with the childproof bottle caps. 

Beth’s eyes flick to the closed door and back to the counter, trying to think of another option—any way she can avoid asking for help—before finally accepting the inevitable.

She isn’t expecting Rio to be right there when she opens the door, but somehow it feels right that he is, he seems to have a knack for knowing when she’s about to break and admit she can’t do everything herself. 

Before she can do more than register his presence, he’s crowding up against her—hands cupping her jaw, huge and warm and rough, fingers digging into her skin like brands—and his lips are crashing down on hers. 

Beth doesn’t think, just kisses him back.

The kiss is ferocious and more than a little desperate. The urgency vibrating off him in the press of his lips, the sweep of his tongue, the barely perceptible tremor in his fingertips unlocks something in Beth, unleashing a tsunami of heat that crashes through her, obliterating her restraint and remapping her shores. 

Whatever Rio was expecting, it wasn’t Beth’s arm coming up to hook around his neck and hold him close, her good hand tangling and twisting in his shirt and pulling him closer, her body pressing against the length of his, sealing them together as thoroughly as she can. 

He staggers back, momentarily caught off guard by the force of her want, and the victory she feels makes it all the sweeter. 

Then he’s surging back against her, and she’s the one stepping back once, twice, stumbling sideways into the vanity. He lets go of her face as they twist so he can wrap his hands around her thighs and hoist her up onto the counter, rolling his hips against her in a motion that feels more instinct than intention. She wiggles in response, trying to brace herself, to get closer, and knocks over the pill bottle she lined up with the rest of her supplies, the rattle startling them both apart. 

Beth gasps to catch her breath, and Rio’s eyes sweep across her face, catching at the gash on her cheek, the burn at her hairline, and past her to catalog the items now scattered across the counter.

He starts to pull away and without consciously deciding to do it, Beth hooks her heels around his legs, not letting him go far. He smirks but it seems more like a habit, something his mouth does that doesn’t match the seriousness in his eyes. Beth drops her feet, giving him room to leave, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he lifts a hand to her hairline, and every cell in Beth’s body snaps to attention, attuned to the motion with an intensity that crackles up her spine, the ghost of his fingers already nudging her hair back and trailing down her face. Her skin is alight with anticipation, and her breath stutters, eyes fluttering nearly closed. Through her lashes, she watches his lips part, the tip of his tongue just barely darting out to wet them.

But he drops his hand and steps back, face shuttering, and Beth nearly cries out as the tension coiled tight inside her snaps loose.

“You need to get that cleaned up,” he says, eyes darting from hers, up to her forehead and back.

For a second, Beth’s tempted to simply nod and kick him out of the room. She’ll figure out a way to patch herself up on her own while she sulks in privacy. 

Except then her hand throbs, like her body’s begging her mind to not make things harder than she needs to. She relents, because she really could use a break and, even more pathetically, she’ll take his hands on her however she can get them.

“I might—“ she swallows hard, trying to push her pride down with it. “I might need some help.”

He wets his lips again and nods. “A’ight.”

She shifts, ready to slide off the counter to give him room, but he casually places a hand on the other side of her thigh, bracketing her in place with his body, not looking at her as he studies what she’s laid out. Her pulse jumps and the unmoored heat still zinging through her body starts to pool low in her belly once more.

She hands Rio the tube of gel and he twists the cap off with a dexterous ease that wrinkles Beth’s nose. He squeezes some out on a cotton pad, and she holds her breath as he leans in, but it’s like he’s going out of his way to not let his skin touch hers as he dabs it on. 

She releases the breath in a gust as he works, and she can’t say for sure—he’s too close and the angle is wrong—but she thinks she sees the bird at his throat ripple.

Rio moves slowly, methodically, his touch gentle behind the gauze barrier, and even without the skin to skin contact, each pass spreads an almost-pins-and-needles-like sensation in its wake. Goosebumps sweep down her arms and her toes curl.

To distract herself, she traces the lines of his face with her eyes. The soft glow of the lighting paints highlights across his cheekbones, blending with the warm tones in his skin. The light fades into shadow where the hint of a beard spreads up the hollows of his cheeks and across the sharp edge of his jaw. Beth’s close enough that she can see the muscle twitch and her fingers flex, wanting to touch, to feel, but she grips the edge of the counter instead. 

He reaches past her to grab a bandage, leaning in so close her breasts press against his chest, and if she tilts her head barely an inch, she could brush her lips against the graceful curve of his neck. When she inhales, she drowns in the smell of him: the clean, faintly spicy scent of his soap—the same smell that now lives in her pores—but underneath that, a rich, heady scent she knows comes directly off his skin because that’s where she’s tasted it.

The sound of the paper wrapper tearing is the loudest thing she’s ever heard, cutting through the silence.

Beth closes her eyes as he smooths the bandage on, his touch strong and sure, and she scrambles for control of her body before embarrassing herself. 

“What else you need?” he asks when he’s done, in a voice as soft and rich as velvet, so close she can feel his breath ghost against her cheek. When she blinks her eyes open, his are all she can see, dark and serious and locked on hers. 

She hates that she has no idea if the question is as laden with innuendo as it sounds, as it seems, with him holding himself so close to her but so carefully apart. She hates that she can’t tell if he's really asking, or if he’s playing some game she doesn’t know the rules of yet.

The thought that he might be messing with her—the memory of the afternoon in his loft suddenly bright and sharp—is where her courage fails her. 

“Pills,” she manages, swallowing hard to clear the thick and sticky combination of regret, uncertainty, and desire from her throat. “I’m supposed to take another…”

“Right, right,” he nods, not moving for a long moment, and this time Beth is positive she sees his Adam’s apple bob. Then he steps far enough back that she goes cold as the rest of the world rushes back in between them. 

He pops open the pill bottle and sets it on the counter. “Get you some water.” 

Then he’s gone.

Beth slides off the counter and has to brace herself when she lands on unsteady legs, taking a deep, shaky breath. 

What _was_ that?

She gathers up her stuff, shoving it back into the tote, picking up and folding her dirty jeans and Annie’s T-shirt—less neatly than she’d like, but her swaddled hand makes her clumsy—and sets them aside. She tries to take comfort in the act of tidying, but finds none. 

He kissed _her._ It’s not like she was the one lurking outside the door, waiting to jump him. He started this, he got her all worked up and now what? She’s just supposed to let it go? Go to sleep?

And sleep where, she wonders. The couch? His bed?

Beth shivers at the last thought, bracing herself against the counter and studying her reflection in the mirror. Her skin’s flushed, more so than before, and her eyes are dazed, pupils blown. Her tongue darts out involuntarily, seeking the last traces of the taste of him on her lips. 

_Fuck_ that. 

She almost _died._ Like hell she’s not going after what she wants tonight of all nights. 

Grabbing a pill, she storms out of the bathroom, riding high on a towering wave of indignation and desire, and nearly crashes into him at the top of the stairs. Before she can say anything, he thrusts a glass of water at her, and she washes down her pill, glaring at him over the rim.

“What’s good, ma?” Rio asks, a slow, lazy smile spreading across his face as he registers her fury and Beth relaxes slightly—she knows that smile, this is familiar ground—even as it digs under her skin. 

“You don’t get to do that,” she snaps. 

“Do what?” he asks, coy and amused, and she wants to grab him, shake him, kiss him, devour him. She hates that he’s playing with her as much as she likes that it lights her up. 

“You know what.” The words come out nearly a growl, and his smile grows.

“Yeah, I’m gonna need you to use your words.” 

He takes the glass from her, and a pulse of heat steals through Beth when he pushes past her and sets it down on a coaster on the dresser.

“What do you want, Elizabeth?” The question’s low, weighted, the playfulness melting away as he turns back to her, and she shudders. The sound of her full name in his mouth is a weapon she’s never quite been able to build up a defense against. 

He makes no move to reach for her, to come closer, to make the choice for her, and Beth realizes this isn’t a game at all. This is something else—something strange and familiar at the same time. It’s the _something more_ she’d seen the potential of in the fire, brought back to life and made new by its resurrection. It’s something precious and she holds it in the palm of her hand, wondering whether to snuff it out or nurture it. 

Beth teeters on a precipice, the word poised on the tip of her tongue is a sure path to either ruin or victory with no in-between. 

Even more terrifying, saying it aloud gives him the power to chart their course. 

_Alive, alive, alive_ , her heart beats. 

“You,” she says.

The word has barely left her mouth before Rio’s closing the distance between them. When his lips touch hers, Beth can’t stop the sigh of relief that slips out. 

Where before his hands cupped her face with a nearly frantic urgency, now, his fingers slide along her jaw. There’s a hesitance to his touch unlike anything she’s ever experienced with him. 

It’s different, this kiss. It’s not that it’s softer, they’ve shared soft kisses before—that afternoon in her bedroom was a revelation in all the ways they have it in them to be gentle with each other. It’s not that it’s slower, or deeper, or any more or less intense than it’s ever been between them. But still, there’s something different. Like he’s saying something to her, except it’s a language she doesn’t speak. 

She wraps her arms around his waist, splaying one hand across his back, fitting her fingers into the valleys of his spine, aligning them along as many points of contact as she can.

His fingers trail down her neck, thumbs sweeping across her collarbones, hands gliding over her shoulders, arms banding across them and holding her tight against him. 

The heat’s still pooling, spreading throughout her body and deeper, turning Beth’s bones to warm, liquid honey. She feels like she’s dissolving into him and he’s melting into her until there’s only them: something so new, so dazzling it takes her breath away, but also so familiar it feels like she’s coming home.

She doesn’t know how long they kiss, it could be minutes, hours, days. She’s lost in the slow dance of his lips against hers, her tongue licking into his mouth, his breath in her lungs. 

If Beth didn’t know any better, she’d think Rio’s holding her like he doesn’t want to let her go, and even though she knows that’s not it, the possibility sets something in her chest aflutter. She can’t help pulling him closer still, her hand fisting in his shirt, pulling it up, her fingers questing for skin. 

He breaks the kiss but doesn’t pull away, looking down at her with eyes so dark and fathomless Beth thinks she could get lost in them and float away, safe and sound in the knowledge that he'd keep the monsters away. She wouldn’t let him though—she's capable of fighting her own monsters, even if it's a dizzying thought. It's almost as if she’s been caught in a riptide for so long that finding solid ground is more disorienting than remaining lost at sea.

Rio’s radiating a kind of desperate, apprehensive tenderness that makes her pulse stutter and skip and she wonders if he also sees how inconsequential the barriers they’ve thrown between them are in the face of what they could be. 

Beth doesn’t think her heart quite fits in her chest. It’s knocking against her ribs, pressing against her lungs.

And it’s _dangerous,_ all the things she’s feeling. But if the last two years have taught her anything, the dangerous edge is where she comes alive.

She can feel his heart beating against her own.

She’s never noticed before how much _alive_ can sound like _I love_ if you listen for it. 

Overwhelmed and more than a little afraid, Beth leans in and presses her lips to the soft hollow where his jaw and ear and neck meet, where the scent of him is rich and ripe, where she can linger a little longer to breathe it in and let it wash over her.

This time Rio’s the one that sighs and Beth feels it sweep across her cheekbone, her hairline, softer than his fingers could ever be. 

Her whole body is pulsing with the need to feel him closer, in her, underneath her skin. 

“More,” she whispers, dragging her lips along the line of his jaw, wiggling her right hand between them to fumble with the first few buttons of his shirt, her gauzed hand fluttering and petting at his side.

In response, he moves them until the back of Beth’s knees hit the edge of his bed. She sits down out of reflex, and he steps back, unbuttoning his shirt faster than she could’ve, and pulls it off along with his undershirt. Not wanting to be left behind, Beth pulls off her own and pops the clasp of her bra, shrugging out of it. 

Rio tsks as he leans, nudging her back with his body until she’s laying down and he’s crawling over her, stroking a hand along her waist, up her ribs, cupping a breast, his thumb rough and sure pressing down on her nipple. He nudges a thigh between hers, and she parts for him, grinding against him.

“Always so impatient,” he says, muffled from his face buried in her hair, his lips warm and sure against the column of her neck, nipping at her collarbone and making her shiver. “I was gettin’ to that.”

“You can take off my pants,” she gasps, reaching for his. 

He sits up on his knees, straddling her. The ambient light from below hits his chest, illuminating the shiny ridges of the scars marring it—the scars she gave him—and the raw edges of the wound she’d helped heal. 

Beth’s hand trembles a little as she reaches her fingers oh so tentatively towards them, starting with the one she can stand. Someone’s redone her stitches, she notes, as she trails her fingers around it, leaving her feeling oddly bereft even though it’s realistically for the best. 

Her eyes dart to his as her fingertips drift higher. _Spleen._ He doesn’t say anything, holding perfectly still, watching her as she runs her hand up his chest. _Shoulder._ It’s not the same order he’d presented the bullets that horrible, wonderful night he’d come back to her. _Lung._ Her hand comes to rest over the last scar, pressing flat, and there’s his heartbeat again, strong and steady beneath her palm. 

Eyes locked on hers, he lifts her injured hand to press his lips to the delicate skin on the underside of her wrist where the gauze ends. The raw, unfiltered emotion in his eyes is nearly too much and Beth has to close hers, fighting back a wave of aching, nearly unbearable warmth surging through her, threatening to spill over. 

Then Rio's pressing himself against her again, his mouth coming down on hers, hard and hot, and she arches into him, wrapping her arms around his neck, pouring all of the things she isn’t ready to say into their kiss. He kisses her back with a fervor that makes her think maybe she understands the language he’s speaking more than she realized.

Eventually, they break apart long enough to get rid of the rest of their clothes, and when he’s crawling back over her, Beth gasps aloud at the skin to skin contact, at the weight of him settling over her, warm and heavy between her legs. 

He slides a hand up her thigh between them, calloused fingers caressing soft flesh, parting her and dipping into her. Her hips buck at his satisfied hum when he finds her wet and ready.

She isn’t surprised—if there’s one thing about them she’s never had cause to doubt, even as she’s denied it to anyone else, it’s how much she wants him. 

He ducks his head, sliding back down her body, pressing a kiss to her navel, then lower, and Beth whimpers, torn between wanting him to keep going—another thing he’d taught her that day in her bed, how good _that_ can be—and wanting him all the way inside her.

The latter wins out. More than Beth wants him to make her come with his exquisitely talented fingers and tongue until she can’t see, she wants the closeness of him over her, inside of her—to be part of her. She wants to be absorbed by him, to brand herself on his bones.

“Later,” she says, wrapping a hand around his bicep and tugging. 

He looks up at her and smiles that obscene, filthy smile that turns her knees to water every time he aims it her way. “We got time, ma.”

Then he’s sliding two fingers into her, so abrupt she clenches down around him, letting out a hoarse moan, her head falling back as she surrenders. Some things aren’t worth fighting over. 

He bends back down, licking into her and painting a line up from his fingers to her clit, tonguing at it in circles and figure eights. Beth flings her head back farther and arches, clasping her good hand over her mouth and biting down to muffle her yell. She’s distantly aware there’s no reason to be quiet, but she can’t help herself. She knows he notices, because she can feel his smirk against her, can feel the huff of breath when he laughs, and she pulses at the sensation.

Rio works her over, tongue dancing and fingers flexing, stoking the fire singing through her veins higher and hotter. When he curls them inside her, her hips buck again, this time nearly hard enough to dislodge him, and he splays his free hand across her stomach, holding her down. The pressure, a gentle but unyielding hold, sends a spike of heat through her, and when he pushes a third finger in and sucks hard on her clit at the same time, it coalesces and explodes. 

He keeps stroking her as she flutters and clenches around him, softly lapping at her clit and drawing her orgasm out. Right as the sensation hits the sharp peak between enough and too much, he pulls out and presses a kiss to the soft skin below her belly, leaving a wet smear across it. 

When he makes his way back up, Beth’s there to meet him, wrapping her arms and legs around him, pulling him against her as his mouth meets hers, sloppy and wet and breathless. Her nerves are still jangling, aftershocks still sparking through her, when she reaches down and wraps her hand around his cock, guiding it into her, unable to wait another second. 

He groans, and she gasps as he slides right in, both of them swallowing the other’s sounds. She’s so wet he bottoms out on that first stroke and she pants, luxuriating in the so-good ache of him stretching her, filling her up. 

When he pulls out, she pulls him right back in with her knees locked around his hips, not wanting to let him go. She rolls her hips against him, he surges into her, and they fall into a rhythm of give and take as natural and effortless as breathing. 

They move and move and move together. Heat washes through her building into a tidal wave that arcs and crests and crashes over her. It drags her under, but he’s right there with her in the deep. 

Drowning in sensation, Beth thinks she groans Rio’s name as she comes, as she clenches around him, pressing her lips against the delicate shell of his ear. She’s pretty sure he gasps hers back as his hips slam into her, and she feels him start to pulse, but she’s so far gone she can’t say for sure. 

When Beth resurfaces, Rio’s still draped across her catching his breath. She revels in the feel of him on top of her, as breathless and undone as she is. She runs a fingertip down his back, bumping over the delicate knobs of his spine as far as she can reach, relishing the way his breath catches at her touch. 

When he rolls off, slipping out of her, she curls into him, chasing the closeness, not ready to let him go. She’s not alone; in the same motion, his arms are wrapping around her and pulling her back against him. 

Beth thinks she should maybe say something, but it almost feels inappropriate, the thought of breaking the hushed silence between them. In this moment they exist in a bubble, a pocket universe where there’s nothing to say, to fix, to worry about. Where she only has to lie there limp and boneless and breathe in, breathe out.

She sighs, a long, contented sound born up from the depths of her, as her body lets go of the last of the tension she’s been holding onto for—she doesn’t know how long, actually. Rio hums, in response, flexing his arms and holding her a little bit tighter. 

Beth’s eyes flutter shut, and she has just enough presence of mind to promise herself she’ll only rest them for a second before she gets out of bed, cleans herself up, checks in on the kids, and figures out her next move. 

But then her exhaustion catches up with her and—more relaxed, more content, more at peace than she can remember feeling in a long time—she drifts off to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I gotta handle this," he says, glancing back up at her before tapping out a reply, and Beth feels her jaw drop as she processes what he's saying.
> 
>  _"What?"_ Outrage at the thought of him dropping all of this on her only to up and leave makes her voice shrill. "You _cannot_ be serious."
> 
> Rio looks up at her, rocking his jaw as he considers her and for a second, Beth thinks he might let it go, might stay here and finish this. But then he flicks a glance back down at his phone, and resolve settles over his features. 
> 
> "That's the business, yeah?" His tone is so loaded with _I told you so_ he may as well have said it out loud. "You don't get to pick and choose what parts you want to do."
> 
> He gives her one last long look, breathing in like he's about to say something else but then his mouth snaps shut, and before she can fully register what's happening, he's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, my eternal love and gratitude to [nickmillerscaulk](https://nickmillerscaulk.tumblr.com/) for beta-reading, editing, sound boarding, and being a rio-shoulder roll connoisseur as well as a general all-around genius. I don't want to spoil y'all but I got very hung up on beth's laundry situation this chapter and she came up with The Best solution.

Beth blinks awake slowly, her senses coming back online one by one. 

The first thing she notes is the unfamiliar angle of the light dancing across the exposed pipes and beams on the ceiling above her. Then she absorbs the quiet—no kids laughing, no dogs barking, no lawnmowers rumbling, none of the sounds of the suburbs present. 

She rolls over, burying her face in the pillow, breathing in the newly familiar fabric softener, and thinks _Rio._ But when she cracks an eye open, she sees she's alone in the bed, and when she wiggles over to the rumpled, indented spot on the sheets, it's cold. 

Which is... it's fine. Better. Last night was—well. She needs a moment to process it. 

Ignoring the pang in her chest at his absence, Beth stretches, arching her back and wiggling her toes, feeling the burn as she forces her stiff, bruised muscles into motion. Her hand throbs, and as soon as she acknowledges it, it throbs again, and again, each beat higher and hotter, and it _hurts._

When she rolls back over, she sees two pills and a glass of water and can't help the smile that bursts across her face. 

This is bad, this is so bad. She needs to get it together. 

There's still no sign of Rio by the time Beth's gotten herself up and shuffled down to the kitchen, so she decides to take matters into her own hands and pokes around, looking for any sign of coffee.

Eventually, she finds a pour-over coffee maker because, of course, he's not going to have anything as pedestrian and convenient as a Mr. Coffee or even a french press. While the water boils, she scrolls through her phone, sends a check-in to her group chat with Annie and Ruby, makes a note that Dorothy's called more than a few times, and fires off a text to Dean to see if it's a good time to talk to the kids. 

Nothing from Rio.

Which, again, is fine. He's probably off—she stops, frowning. She shifts her weight, uncomfortable at the reminder of how little she knows about him. 

Beth makes herself a single cup of coffee because that's all Rio’s ridiculous system will do at once—it's like he's intentionally making mornings harder on himself. As she hunts for cream, she makes the snap decision to marinate some of the raw chicken she sees in his fridge for later, shrugging off the slight prickle of unease that maybe that would be _too_ much. They'll need to eat, and the routine of cooking—the concrete steps and actions with a planned result—is predictable and entirely under her control in a way she desperately needs something to be right now. She needs to let everything she's feeling settle into some kind of order so she can process it.

She finds a pantry filled with a surprisingly varied selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, though she's embarrassed to admit she doesn't know what all of them are. She spots mangos and avocados and jalapeños, luxuries Beth rarely lets herself buy—not when she's the only one in the house who would eat them. Between Dean's aversion to spicy food, Danny's allergies, and Jane's refusal to eat anything "too green," there are approximately ten recipes she's currently cycling through.

Her eyes travel along to the range of pastas and grains, all decanted into glass jars and she wonders if Rio does that himself or if he has a housekeeper or something. She wonders if he does his own shopping, if he has a go-to grocery store. 

She tries to picture Rio in the produce aisle, selecting avocados, checking to see if the peppers are ripe, but she can't do it. It's too mundane, too normal, too... _her_ world. When she tries to place him in it, he's like a piece from another puzzle that got mixed in the box by mistake; his edges are too angular, colors too bright. He doesn't fit.

The low-level apprehension buzzing under her skin spikes, and she does her best to shake it off. 

By the time she's prepared the marinade and the chicken is back in the fridge, Dean's texted back that they have an hour before the activity shuffle starts so if she wants to talk, it has to be now. Beth scoffs at the implied censure. Like she doesn't know that. Like she doesn't have their schedules worn into the deepest crevices of her brain, branded there by years of routine and repetition. As if she hadn't asked him if it was a good time simply to offer the olive branch of pretending she didn't know so he could tell her. 

Beth grabs her coffee and settles onto the couch, wrapping the throw artfully tossed over the corner— _god, is this cashmere?_ —around her neck and shoulders. She straightens her back, allowing the genuine excitement and desperate anticipation to see her kids shine across her face and hide her irritation with their father as she pulls out her phone. 

The kids accept her vague explanation of an accident at work without much interest, they're much more focused on chattering at her about how grandma's teaching them to dehydrate fruit and make homemade donuts. Beth lets their excited voices wash over her, hating that she's not with them so much she aches with it, but the dull throb in her hand reminds her she made the right call.

"What really happened?" Dean asks, when he gets on the call, not bothering to say hello.

"An accident at work," Beth repeats, using that high, breathy voice that always pacifies him. "A stack of paper fell over on a radiator. It was scary, but I'm fine."

She sees the voice start to work, he's unwinding, glazing over, accepting that what happened is over with and doesn't require anything from him. But then his eyes catch over her shoulder.

"Where are you?" he asks, flat, a mulish look spreading across his face. Beth does her level best not to roll her eyes knowing it'll only make it worse.

"Staying with a friend," she says, her pleasant tone's gone brittle around the edges, but he doesn't seem to notice.

"Beth—"

"So, I was thinking," she cuts him off, bright and cheerful. "Hopefully, this thing I'm working on will be over with by next weekend. Maybe you can bring the kids back on Saturday, in time for dinner."

She's tired of not having her kids, hates the thought of that big empty house. She's speaking this into existence, giving herself a week to get her life back under control. Somehow.

"Yeah?" Dean perks up, distracted by the thought of things returning to the status quo. "Emma's got her flute lesson, but we'll come by after. Hey, can you make those little cranberry pinwheel things I like? I was thinking about those the other day, with the—"

"Dean," Beth cuts him off again, sharper this time before forcibly softening her tone, not wanting to get him worked up. "I meant just the kids. I thought you could drop them off. It could be my turn for a bit while we...figure this out."

"Oh, right." Dean's face falls, shifts into what she knows he thinks of as his irresistible puppy dog look. He never realized the only reason Beth didn't resist it was at first a want to please him and later a lack of energy. "Listen, Bethie, I've been thinking—"

_Fucking Bethie._

"Dean—"

"Wait! Hear me out! Divorce is expensive, and neither one of us is really in a place right now where we can swing it. What if we—"

"Dean," she sighs, exasperated at the thought of rehashing all of this again. 

"I'm not saying get back together, I hear you, you don't—" He swallows hard, and Beth reads the palpable sadness in his face with a twinge. "I'm just saying, maybe we can try separation for a while. My mom says I can stay as long as I need to while we figure this out, and we could save some money, maybe see how we feel in a month or two. What do you say?"

Beth takes a minute to honestly think about it—she doesn't owe it to Dean, but she owes it to the kids. And he's right, a divorce would be a financial and emotional burden on all of them that couldn’t come at a worse time. Maybe putting the actual legal proceeding off isn't the worst idea. 

And, if she's entirely honest, there's a teensy tiny corner of herself that still yearns for the safety net. Not Dean—that's been over for a long time, she's coming to realize. She’s spent so long suppressing how she feels, now that the seal has cracked and things are surfacing, she’s horrified to realize how much she’s been ignoring.

But it's scary, these things she's feeling, this world she's walking deeper into. It's new and wild and entirely out of her control. She can't help the part of her that's still looking over her shoulder, wondering if it would be safer to run back to what she knows. 

Maybe if last night hadn't happened—not just the fire, but everything that came after—she would've wavered, would've agreed to give a separation a shot, would've clung to the worn-in familiarity of her marriage simply because she knows the exact shape of it, knows what to expect and how to navigate it. But last night did happen, and now Beth knows what else there is outside the boundaries of her old, safe little existence. She's been so focused on the thrill of the crime and being good at it, she hadn't realized how much more there is, how much she wants to explore it.

She might be walking down a twisted path in a dark and unfamiliar wood, but her eyes are starting to adjust to the night. She's coming to understand the depth and beauty in the shadows, how much life is teeming beyond what she could see from the light. 

For maybe the first time ever, Dean must successfully read what she's feeling on her face because his falls again, further this time. 

"I can't, Dean," Beth says, shaking her head. "I told you, that isn't enough for me."

He takes a deep breath, looking off-screen while he collects himself. When he refocuses, his eyes skip past her to over her shoulder, and his expression re-hardens—as much as Dean's face is ever able to harden. Beth had never really noticed how soft he was before. It feels significant that she's seeing it now, but she doesn't know exactly why. 

"I thought you said it wasn't about him," Dean says.

"It's not," Beth sighs, amazed that apparently they really are going to retread the exact same ground every time they talk about this, exhausted at the thought of what's to come.

"But you're having sleepovers now?" 

"That's not—"

"Whatever. I have to go, Danny's going to be late for fencing."

A bolt of fear shoots through her, icy and sharp when she remembers what Dean did the last time he'd decided she and Rio were becoming unacceptably close.

"Wait, Dean—" 

He pauses. "What?"

"You'll bring the kids to the house next weekend." She drops the Bethie mask entirely, letting the steel she's always been so careful to hide from Dean fill and strengthen her statement, challenging him to cross her. It isn't a question—she won't let it be—and he needs to know it.

He blinks, taken aback. "I, uh—yeah, Saturday. I'll bring them."

"Good, thank you," she says, a little softer this time but still firm. "Goodbye."

"Bye."

Then he's gone, and Beth sags back into the couch, feeling like she's just run a marathon: exhausted at the effort and giddy at the victory in equal measure. It feels _good_ to take control, to decide what she wants, to dig in and go after it. 

Emboldened by her triumph, the wheels in her head start to turn as she considers everything she needs to straighten out. Beth pulls up Dorothy's number, the beginnings of a plan starting to take shape.

—————

Five hours, numerous phone calls, and a lot of research—that would be a lot less frustrating if she had a computer and keyboard instead of a phone and one thumb—later, Beth's cobbled together a pretty respectable outline for a plan. There's still a lot to fill in, but she's...really proud, actually, of what she's put together. She's _still_ proud of what she did with the dealership, but at the end of the day, she'd been building off of Dean's business, working with what she had.

This idea? This would be hers—something she came up with, something that plays to _her_ strengths. 

And, if she can pull this off, it’s something _she_ would own. Control. 

The thought of what it could be sends an effervescent, bubbly feeling fizzing through her veins that makes her want to dance. 

She can _do_ this.

Sure, there are some holes and a few things she's, well, not sure how Rio will react to, but she thinks they can make it work, especially if he _wants_ to make it work like she does.

She looks at her phone and sees there's still no sign of him. The sparkling, golden feeling dims slightly. 

Her thumb hovers over the message window, debating whether or not to text him. What stops her, in the end, is the question of what she would say. The thought of sending _when will you be home_ —something she'd sent to Dean more times than she can count—chills her to the bone.

 _It's not the same_ , she assures herself, fighting back a distressingly familiar weight in her chest. Yes, she's here alone, waiting, with no idea where Rio is or what he's doing or when he'll be back—and they are _definitely_ going to talk about that—but the circumstances are completely different. He's completely different. She's just...sensitive to the situation, given her history.

Hating the idea of sliding back into anything like her old pattern—the chicken marinating in the fridge jumps to mind and she winces—Beth thinks about leaving, about calling a Lyft and going home. But Mia's still out there, and she doesn't know what that means or when she'll resurface. If Beth goes back to her house, it's just more looking over her shoulder, and she knows she'll have to do... _something_ at some point, but for now, she's grateful for the reprieve. 

Besides, she knows what's waiting for her at home: an empty house, a faint, vaguely body-shaped stain on her floorboards, and reminders of what she’s given up everywhere she turns. She doesn't know what could be waiting for her here, what could happen when Rio comes back, if anything will be different. 

If nothing will be. 

She’d rather linger in the safety of this uncertainty, she decides, than go home. 

Beth shoves off the couch. That too tight, itchy feeling is back, and she needs to move, to do something, to distract herself. She can't remember the last time she's had time to herself without anything or anyone needing her attention.

Actually, she can, she realizes. It was the night this all started. 

Shaking off sudden trepidation, she pads her way back upstairs to take a shower. While there's an illicit, almost possessive thrill to walking around Rio's loft with the remains of their night together dried across her skin, she needs to clean herself up.

She doesn't wash her hair, not wanting to go through the song and dance with the first-aid again. It occurs to her now she probably could've used her teeth last night instead of asking for help, and she laughs to herself, wondering if she didn't think of it because she didn't want to. She stays in the shower for a long time, letting the hot water beat down on her tired muscles—of course he has amazing water pressure—sort of hoping Rio will come back and surprise her, slide in behind her, and...well.

Once that thought takes root, she can't help but touch herself, letting the mental picture blend seamlessly with the memories of his hands on her, the weight of him over her, and the feel of him inside her. She remembers how he'd whispered something that sounded like her name as he surged into her, and it sends her over the edge, liquid warmth spilling almost lazily through her body as she flutters and shakes.

Afterward, once she's dried off, Beth shrugs on her bra, clasping and adjusting it, only to abruptly realize she already used her one change of underwear. She stops to weigh her options, flicking a glance to the dresser just outside the bathroom door.

No, that would be...weird. Way too much.

But she feels so clean and fresh and she’s already reusing her sweats and t-shirt, so—

Before she can think about it anymore, she’s at his dresser, pulling open the top drawer. He never has to know, right? And she’s not snooping, she’s just grabbing something she needs.

She grabs a pair of black boxer briefs off of the neatly folded stack and pauses, eyes caught by a little tray of jewelry. It’s one of those multi-compartment things and she’s unsurprised to find it neatly divided by type of item. He’s got a space for wristbands, a few for rings, and one with what looks like a rosary—she pauses at that, wondering if he’s religious or if it’s a keepsake, a relic from an earlier point in his life. 

Then she registers the last compartment and its contents: three bullets, mangled by impact.

Beth slams the drawer shut, instantly numb, and sits down heavy on the edge of the bed. That’s what she gets for snooping. 

She swallows hard, throat still faintly aching, and swallows again, trying to force down the lump that’s risen there, trying not to see the red blooming on his chest, trying not to remember the rigid skin under her fingertips.

The last memory brings with it the feel of his lips, impossibly soft on the paper thin skin of her inner wrist, resting on her pulse point as she held her hand over his heart. 

Shaking herself, trying to settle her thoughts back into some kind of order, she pulls on his briefs—she has to wiggle a little, they’re not the best fit but they’re clean—followed by her sweats and t-shirt, then settles back down on the bed. 

Casting about for a distraction, her eyes catch on the picture of Rio and Marcus on the bedside table. It's a reprint of the one from his old loft—she assumes, anyway, the frame is different—Marcus perched on Rio's lap with Rio's arm casually wrapped around him, holding him close. She rolls over, scooching closer to get a better look. Marcus is grinning at the camera, and Beth's heart twists at the carefree, childlike version of Rio's smile spread across his little face. 

Even when relaxing with his son, there's a hint of guarded challenge in the jut of his jaw, the purse of his lips. Beth wonders what it would look like if he ever let his walls all the way down. If it would look anything like last night.

Her eyes shift downward when she notices the drawer is off-kilter like it had been shoved closed quickly without taking the time to line it up right. She trails a finger along the edge, hooking her fingertips ever so slightly into the gap and wiggling it the tiniest bit open. She stops, conflicted. 

There’s pretty much no way to avoid the fact that she’s snooping now. Sure, she’s annoyed with him for disappearing but going through his bedside table is—it’s intimate. Intrusive in a way merely exploring his kitchen isn’t. 

She thinks of the bullets. 

She pulls her hand back.

Then she remembers him waiting for her in her kitchen that first time he’d broken in. How he welcomed himself into her bedroom at Kenny's birthday party, studying the pictures and knick-knacks like she'd given him an invitation to look around. She remembers the remains of her kitchen after he'd gone through it to take back his money. 

She thinks about the loft and how much dimension it adds to Rio, despite the way it also highlights how little she truly knows about him, how much he won't tell her. She thinks about waking up alone, no sign of him beyond those pills, no word on where he went, what he was doing, when he'd be back. 

Beth pulls open the drawer.

It's sparse, like the one in his old loft. A dead phone, a gun, a clip and a box of bullets, a wooden box, a few colorful wristbands, some pens but no paper. The pens are a little chewed up on the end, and Beth smiles a little to herself—he's such a fidgeter, that much she knows. 

She absently flips open the box. It's a smaller version of the one with his watches she'd found last time, so she assumes the contents will be similar. 

They're not.

Beth blinks, waiting for her brain to make sense of what she's seeing, because what her eyes are telling her the box contains doesn't make any sense at all.

Her eyes are telling her there's a string of pearls, and they look an awful lot like the ones she'd left hanging on the warehouse door nearly two years ago. She pulls them out, slowly running them through her fingers, feeling along the clasp looking for—there. She finds the tiny divot in the gold from when the pin had gotten stuck once, and she pried it open with nail scissors, gouging the soft metal. 

Rio kept her pearls.

Not only her pearls, but there's also a swatch of bright blue fabric folded in the box, and Beth doesn't need to pull it out—though she does anyway, like holding them in her hand will make any of this less surreal—to know they're her panties from that night in the bathroom.

_They're just things, yeah?_

But they aren't, though. These are _her_ things.

Rio kept her pearls and panties _._ In a wooden box. Next to his _bed._

Beth's head spins, and she realizes somewhere along the way she's stopped breathing. 

She thought she was the one who had a big epiphany, who was feeling something new and was waiting, balanced on a knife's edge to see if he could catch up. But now she wonders if she's been trailing behind this whole time.

The thought is an earthquake, a cataclysm thundering through her, rewriting everything she thought she knew. She can feel the tectonic shift in her mind as it rearranges itself to accommodate this knowledge, this new idea.

She remembers how he kissed her last night, how it felt like he was trying to tell her something. She wonders if maybe she knows now what it was. 

Her heart feels too big for her chest again.

Before she can do much more than gape, the sound of the front door opening below snaps her out of it, and she scrambles to put the box back where it came from. Beth’s hands shake as she tries to slide the drawer shut as quietly as possible, knowing instinctively that he wouldn’t want her to know he kept these things. Not yet, not when this thing between them is—well, maybe not new, but definitely fragile. 

He's had these things all along and never said anything, never indicated he wanted—he felt—

She doesn't know if this changes anything, if she's jumping to conclusions. She hears Rio’s keys clatter to the counter and tries to shut it all away, needing more time to process it on her own before she can even think about it around him.

Still, she can't help the way her breath catches when she goes to the top of the stairs and looks down to see him looking up at her. 

This is so bad, she needs to get herself under control, or she's going to do something she shouldn't.

"Where were you?" she asks, grimacing. She didn't mean to open with that, to sound like a nagging wife. "I mean, I didn't—You weren't...did something happen?"

If anything, that's worse. She basically just gift-wrapped the upper hand for him and from the satisfied curve of the smile teasing the edges of his mouth, he knows it. Beth sighs, giving up, and comes down the stairs.

"I don't think it's unreasonable to want to know what's going on," she says as she approaches him, his smugness stirring up the still-smoldering embers of her anger at being left alone with no notice or explanation. "I can't just—I did the waiting at home in the dark thing for too many years, I'm not doing that anymore."

He nods, smirk dropping away in favor of something real and maybe a little contrite. "It wasn't supposed to take that long."

It's close to an apology, closer than he's ever gotten before and it’s almost enough for Beth to let it go, but if they're going to do...whatever this is, she doesn't want to start by letting things slide.

"Text me next time," she says, soft. "Just let me know you're— _oh!"_

His knuckles are split and bruised, crusted with dried blood that's only been haphazardly wiped off. 

"What happened?" she asks, reaching for him, but he pulls his hands away.

"Not your problem," he says, shying back a step. 

Beth frowns, both at the blood and the distance he's putting between them. 

The faintest whisper of anxiety tiptoes up her spine, tightening her shoulders. 

"Do you want—" she breaks off, second-guessing whether or not she should offer to help. "Do you need to clean them up?"

"S'all good." He turns away from her, going to the sink and running his hands under the water.

Beth chews on her lip, shifting her weight back and forth uncomfortably, doubt creeping in. She hadn't given much thought to how today would go; last night was a whirlwind of immediacy and feeling that, as more hours pass, is starting to feel like a dream, something that couldn't possibly be real.

She thought she'd felt something—something real—and it meant something to her. She thought maybe it had meant something to him too.

He had to feel it too, right? He'd kept _her_ things. He'd touched her like _that_. It _had_ to mean something. 

Then she remembers Rio calling her _his_ the other day and can't stop herself from wondering if it isn't about her as a person at all. If she's just another one of his things. A favored one, maybe, but still a _thing—_ one that can be boxed up and put safe and sound on a shelf. Tucked away in a nightstand. 

Easily discarded at whim if the situation calls for it.

The thought is like being doused in icy water, and Beth nearly expects her teeth to chatter at the abrupt, visceral sensation.

She hates this. Hates this tightrope feeling, hates that Rio's shutting her out, hates that a part of her wants to accept it, to not push too hard and upset the equilibrium.

 _"Hey,"_ she says, sharp and demanding. 

He looks over his shoulder at her, startled.

"What happened?" she asks again, crossing her arms, addressing the easy part. 

He sighs, shutting off the water and turning around to face her full-on, leaning back against the sink and crossing his own arms. "Had a problem with a distributor who thought they could withhold some key information, got passed up the ladder and couldn't wait. I handled it."

He throws the words at her with a dare behind them, like they're a test he's expecting her to fail, like it'll prove something to him. Beth's heart sinks, she thought they were past this.

"Is the problem solved?" she asks, her voice as calm and level as she can make it—a part of her shocked and appalled that she may very well be coolly asking if someone is dead, but it's a part growing quieter and more thoughtful every day. She's relieved to see the set of his shoulders relax ever so slightly as he nods. "Good."

Some of the tension dissipates, but there's still an inexplicable distant feeling between them, so at odds with the closeness Beth had felt last night, it makes her feel awkward and apprehensive in a way she hasn't felt in years. 

"We need to talk," she says, apprehension exponentially intensifying when his face goes blank. "Not—I think I have a plan."

A complicated mix of emotions breaks through the mask, rippling across his face too fast for her to catch anything other than a trace of surprise, maybe relief. Whatever he thought she was going to say—and she's pretty sure she can guess what it was, because when has _we need to talk_ been the start of anything other than a relationship conversation—this isn't it, and he's glad for it.

"A'ight."

"I talked to Dorothy," Beth says, dropping onto one of the stools at the kitchen island. "She doesn't want to reopen the store, she said it's way past time to retire."

He frowns a little like that's not what he was expecting her to say either, and Beth doesn't know why he thought an elderly woman would reopen a gift shop. 

“It got me thinking, even if she _were_ going to reopen... cleaning, renovating, getting the shop back up and running? It would take months, and we wouldn’t be able to print the whole time.”

He nods, like she isn’t saying anything new, like it’s something he’d already considered. Irritation stiffens her spine.

“Who says I need the store?” His eyebrows go up at that and she can’t stop herself from smirking a little, pleased to have surprised him. “The important thing is the print shop—for both lines of business. I can set up a press anywhere with enough space and start filling orders a lot faster than we’d be able to get a full store up and running.”

“So, you want to start what, a warehouse operation?” 

Beth wonders if he’s picturing his old warehouse, the one he’d let her get a glimpse of before clearing it out. The one where she’d left the string pearls he kept. 

“Not exactly, but more or less. A legitimate one, still using the Paper Porcupine as a cover.”

Beth lays out her whole plan for him, walking him through the result of hours of phone calls and Googling. Dorothy agreed to let Beth have the store’s existing customer list and take over any outstanding or repeat orders. She’d been grateful for the solution, not wanting to abandon her customers entirely, and Beth almost felt bad about how little effort it had taken to maneuver Dorothy into offering not only the customer list, but also the Paper Porcupine name and—assuming it’s salvageable, which it probably is, considering the machine was made back when things were built to last—the press.

“Instead of a storefront, I want to build out the website. Transition to e-commerce and take orders through there. We can keep selling pre-made cards as well. Even digital templates.” 

“And you’re gonna what? Fill orders yourself? Hire out?” 

“I talked to Lucy, the store designer, and she wants to stay on as a freelancer. She thinks she can do the website, too. She might even know some old classmates who’d be interested in pitching in project by project depending on the volume of work. But wait, I haven’t gotten to the best part.” 

Her words are coming faster, tumbling over each other as her pulse picks up, this was the part she was really proud of.

“Yeah? What’s that?” he asks, shoving up to sit on the counter across from the island, neutrality melting into that intent focus he gets when he’s really listening, honing in on Beth completely. 

“Expansion,” she says, spreading her hands to illustrate her point, the full force of his undivided attention lighting her up.

A while back, Lucy had made an offhand comment about art schools practically giving old presses away and it stuck in Beth’s mind to look into it someday when she was ready to grow—today was that day.

“Walk me through it,” Rio demands. 

“We get more presses, I make more plates, we make more money. We grow the legitimate side at the same time to explain the increased supply orders. I want to start going to craft fairs, bridal shows, anywhere it would make sense for an artisanal craft printer to have a presence. I was thinking I could set up partnerships with event planners and offer discounts to their clients for referrals.”

“It’s the perfect cover,” she continues, unable to keep the pride out of her voice. “Who knows, maybe we can even get big enough to wash, too.”

“Nah,” Rio shakes his head and Beth’s heart plummets. She really wanted to end her pitch on an inspiring note, get him fully on board before she got into the tricky parts. “Online business staffed by contractors? IRS will be all over you, your books gotta be clean.”

Beth rolls it around in her head; it’s not an insurmountable obstacle. “So we don’t wash, or we wash it somewhere else. If anything wouldn’t an audit help shore up the legitimacy of the business?”

“It’s risky.”

“Everything we do is risky,” Beth shoots back.

He nods, acknowledging her point and drumming his fingers on the countertop as he considers her plan from all angles. Beth has to stop herself from squirming at the pure glee of being taken seriously. After so many years of being overlooked, of making herself smaller than she is, it's a thrill she doesn't think she'll ever get over.

"So what you think?" Rio asks. "You're gonna use the old lady's insurance money to get all this up and running? You think that'll cover it?"

"Well…I could, though I'm not sure how much it will actually cover, and then I'd have to buy Dorothy out."

She licks her lips. "Or, if I provide my own capital, she'll keep the insurance money as her buy out, and the business will be mine from the get-go."

"Oh yeah? Where you plannin' on comin' up with the kind of capital you need to get a business off the ground?"

From the way he's looking at her, he sees the writing on the wall. Nothing for it but to go for it.

"I know you're not Merrill Lynch," she begins, making him almost smile, something closer to it than he's gotten up until now, anyway. "But I'm hoping we can work something out with some kind of small business loan. Or, I don't know, maybe you have a spare warehouse lying around that I can rent from you."

He huffs at that, but Beth can't tell if it's a good or bad thing.

"I think there's real potential here," she continues, earnestly pressing her point. "I think I can get my hands on three presses, maybe four if the Paper Porcupine one is still in commission, which would mean printing at three or four times our current rate. Ruby and Annie are already looking into bulk resources for some of our other needs."

She can tell he likes that and truth be told she does too. She's been on a high all afternoon, carefully lining up her dominos one by one. As far as production goes, things were falling into place with a nearly bizarre amount of ease. The biggest problem will be finding additional help they can trust to work in the shop with them. When she voiced that to the girls, Annie immediately suggested calling JT at the Kwik Cash to see if he's looking for, as she put it, a side hustle. 

"Solid plan. Could work," he says eventually, and Beth grins wide, momentarily forgetting the other part she still has to sell him on. He pushes off the counter and comes over to the island, leaning toward her so their eyes are leveled, and rests his chin in his hand. "Go back to the part where you want me to finance it, yeah? What's my cut?"

Beth swallows hard and says it all in a rush, "30 percent until I pay you back, then it's mine."

Rio's eyebrows shoot up. "Come again?"

"The percentage is negotiable, but it has to be mine at the end of it," Beth says firmly. 

She thought a lot about what she wants, what she _needs,_ where they clash, and what can break them. She needs something that's hers, that's built for herself. Not only that, but they also have very different approaches to this business they're in. And for as much as she's learned from him, there are some things they will never see eye to eye on, conflicts that will always be wedged between them. 

She doesn't know how she can ever truly trust in them if there's a voice in her head that wonders how much is real. She doesn't know how she can ever believe that at the end of the day, she isn't just work to him unless that's taken off the table.

"Let me make sure I got this straight," he says, eyes narrowing as he straightens up and crosses his arms. All traces of levity are gone from his face, replaced by the cold, steely anger she's run into every time his money is threatened. "Not only are you asking me to fund your li'l startup operation, but you want to take over a branch of _my_ business, and I'm supposed to what? Send a fuckin' gift basket?"

"Why not?" Beth shoots back, unable to keep the defensive edge out of her voice. "You were getting out before all of this started! You were flipping your game! I'm not trying to—to _short_ you, we can do 50/50 until the loan's paid off. But it has to be something I'm building for me if, if…"

She trails off, unsure if she can make it about them in the face of his outrage. She's not sure what it will do to her if it's not enough. If his cut—his _money—_ is more important. 

There's one more card up her sleeve, though. It's one she never planned on using, one she hates that she collected in the first place, but it's the only other thing she has.

"You owe me," she whispers, her throat suddenly dry as the desert. 

He cocks his head, sneering at her. "How you figure that one, darlin'?"

Beth takes a deep breath, straightening up in her seat. If she's doing this, she'll face it head-on. "That night in Canada. I saved your life. You said you'd owe me."

He jerks back, eyes widening nearly imperceptibly before he looks away.

For a long moment, neither one of them says anything. Rio won't look at her, and she can't stop looking at him. The muscle in his jaw twitches like a tiny, furious heartbeat.

"You sure you want to call that in for this?" 

"Yes," Beth says, simple and direct. What else is there to say?

It occurs to her that he could still say no, that he could not honor the deal. She doesn't know where that would leave them, how they'd go forward from there. 

He turns back to her, his arms still crossed, and Beth can see his fingers are drumming again—a faster, tenser tempo than before—this time against his elbows, but at least he’s looking at her. That has to be a good sign. 

"50/50 while you pay me back, 30 percent equity after, but you run the show," he says, finally.

"70/30 while I pay you back, ten percent after that," Beth fires back without missing a beat—she's thought this through already, what compromises she can and can't make—fighting to stay focused, to keep afloat on the tide of relief rushing through her. "Unless I'm renting from you, then no equity. But I'll sign a lease. Or however you do that."

He huffs at that, sucking in his lower lip, jaw set as he looks her up and down, evaluating her resolve. Beth's skin tingles in the wake of his gaze, and she's nearly breathless with anticipation, mind racing to anticipate his next argument and how she'll counter it.

"A'ight," he agrees, and Beth blinks.

"Okay?" she asks, wary. "Just like that?"

"It's a good plan," he allows, and it should be a victory, but Beth senses tension in the way he's holding himself and decides that counting it as such would be premature. "Few holes, though."

"Like what?"

"Like what you're gonna do about this mess you're sittin' in." The words come out low and hoarse, an undercurrent of something tumultuous behind them. She realizes the rage she'd seen in him last night is still simmering, and he's letting it come to a boil.

"I, I thought—I don't…" she stutters and trails off, unsure what the right move is.

"You want to be a boss, yeah? That's what all of this is, you settin' up shop, buildin' your own empire?"

"Yes. I mean, I get it, I'm infringing on your territory, but I was hoping we could—"

He's laughing, but it's bitter, dark. "Nah, see, you got it all wrong. You're still thinkin' I'm your problem."

"I _don't,_ " Beth cries, flinching at the reminder of what she'd said in his loft. "I know you're not my problem! Mia—"

"Yeah, no, it ain't Mia either," he snaps, cutting her off.

"Then what is it?" she asks, confused. 

_"You."_ He says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world, like he's confused as to how she's not keeping up. 

"I—What?" 

"You still ain't learned to clean up your messes—"

"Stop _saying_ that." The condescension in his tone is a lit match, and her temper flares to life in response. "I'm not a—a _fucking_ child, and this isn't _my_ mess!"

"Oh, no?" Now he's fucking pouting at her, taunting her. "Whose is it? Mine? Is that what you're sayin'?"

Beth stops, there's a trap here. She can hear it coiled to snap in his tone, but she can't see the tripwire. 

"That's what you said the other day, yeah? Comin' at me, bitchin' 'bout how I said I'd handle it?"

Beth nods, leery. She assumed he’d be the one to handle it. He was the one who’d introduced her to Mia in the first place...and besides, this isn't her department, she doesn't—she doesn't _handle_ things like that. 

"Coz, see, if it's _my_ mess and _I_ gotta clean it up, that means _you're_ my mess, _mine_."

"I told you, I am _not_ —" Beth says, jerking back. The echo of everything she'd been thinking about, afraid of, lodges in her heart like a shard of ice, sharp and cold and clarifying.

"Yeah, it don't really matter what you think 'bout it, though," he interrupts. "You want to be your own boss? Who are you? No one knows you. No one's got any reason to deal with you."

Rio steps forward, bracing himself on the other side of the counter, leaning towards her to drive his point home. "I told you a long time ago, you want to be the king, you gotta kill the king." 

Beth feels her lips tremble and sets her jaw, fighting the tremor back.

"You got an opportunity though. You need the kind of clout cleanin' up the mess on your hands will get you. Word’s already out, Mia's too loud, people know she's up to some shit and someone's gotta answer for it." He looks her up and down, assessing whether or not she's hearing him. "And if it ain't you, these people at the table you're angling for a seat at? They don't see a boss bitch—they just see a bitch." 

He pauses, angling his head. Something almost like sympathy tempers the storm in his eyes. "And no one's doing business with bitches, darlin'."

"I'm not a _bitch,"_ Beth spits back, latching on to the easiest part of his speech to respond to. 

"Oh yeah? How you gonna prove that?" he shoots back, impatient. "This ain't about what you _are,_ this is about how you _look,_ what people think of you. And if you want people to take you seriously, you gotta make a move."

"That's not fair! I shot Bruno! I shot—"

"What, shot _me_?" He waves it away, undeterred from his point. "No one knows about that shit, and they ain't gonna, or that's gonna be a problem for me. But that wasn't exactly a calculated maneuver, yeah? And Bruno—you mean to do it?"

"I—" She sees what he's saying, and she doesn't like it. She hates that two of the worst moments of her life can be waved away as insufficient.

"You can handle the heat of the moment, and that ain't nothing, but it's not enough. Not for what you're tryin' to do. You gotta be able to go on the offensive. It's like I told you, you gotta make sure people know crossin' you is dangerous."

"That's not—I'm not—I can handle it."

"Yeah? So what's your plan for Mia? She took a shot at you, a good one. What're you gonna do about it?"

"I—I—"

"Exactly. You're sitting there looking like death warmed over because she nearly killed you, talking 'bout how you want to set up shop, but you ain't got a plan to deal with your unsettled debts first." He pushes back up off the counter, clasping his hands behind his back, adjusting his shoulders like they're tired from carrying the weight of her bullshit. Beth’s temper flares so high and hot at the sight, the only thing that stops her from erupting is that he continues his point before she can do more than sputter.

"You're smart, and you ain't afraid to get down in the shit, but at the end of the day, that only means so much in this business if you can't take it all the way. You’re not ruthless like you gotta be, and everyone you deal with is gonna know it as soon as they lay eyes on you."

The silence that falls between them feels thick, nearly crackling with unspent electricity. Beth wants to fight back and reject everything he's said but can't find an angle to rebut. 

It always seems to come back to this, whether or not Beth has what it takes, and she hates it. Hates that after everything she's been through—everything she's _done—_ it's not enough to prove she can do this.

"So, what am I supposed to do?" 

Rio shrugs, and she knows what he's saying with the gesture. 

"I don't know if I can do it," she whispers.

"Then maybe you ain't ready to go out on your own." The worst part is how he says it. It's not pitying or patronizing. If anything, it's soft, understanding, like he's been waiting for her to come to this inevitable conclusion. 

Beth recoils like she's been bitten. _"No."_

"It's not about yes or no, ma. You want to be in it, this is what it takes." He stops, looking away for a moment, and when he looks back at her, there's a shade of something almost sad in his eyes, like he's mourning something, but it’s not clear what. "You're the only one that knows if you got it in you."

A buzz cuts through the tension between them, loud and abrupt enough that Beth jumps, and she swears he does too. She instinctively pats her pocket—the kids flashing through her mind like they always do anytime they're not with her and a phone unexpectedly rings—but it's Rio's, not hers. He pulls it out and glances at the screen with a muttered curse.

"I gotta handle this," he says, glancing back up at her before tapping out a reply, and Beth feels her jaw drop as she processes what he's saying.

 _"What?"_ Outrage at the thought of him dropping all of this on her only to up and leave makes her voice shrill. "You _cannot_ be serious."

Rio looks up at her, rocking his jaw as he considers her and for a second, Beth thinks he might let it go, might stay here and finish this. But then he flicks a glance back down at his phone, and resolve settles over his features. 

"That's the business, yeah?" His tone is so loaded with _I told you so_ he may as well have said it out loud. "You don't get to pick and choose what parts you want to do."

He gives her one last long look, breathing in like he's about to say something else but then his mouth snaps shut, and before she can fully register what's happening, he's gone. 

—————

Ultimately the reason Beth decides to stay is that she's fairly sure he expects her to leave, maybe even hopes for it. 

So instead, she cooks. She cooks with an almost delirious determination, losing herself in the rhythm of dicing, measuring, mixing. She takes a nearly perverse glee in using as many dishes as possible, making the most complicated recipes she can dig up the ingredients for—his pantry is irritatingly well-stocked—taking over his kitchen to the utmost limits she can. At one point, she finds some yeast and on the fly decides to make bread from scratch. Having to wrap her bandaged hand in plastic and be careful with the pressure counteracts some of the therapeutic aggression that comes from kneading, but she still vents a good amount of her anger into the dough. She lets it rise a little longer than usual to compensate in case she overdid it. 

Beth's always used cooking and baking as a way to settle her thoughts, to figure out solutions to problems she doesn't want to face head-on, and this is no different. While she works, she can feel the back of her mind working away, gnawing at the picture Rio's words painted for her, scrambling to determine what her next move is. 

The infuriating thing is he's not entirely wrong. She's no one in the grand scheme of crime in Detroit; she’d already confronted that when she hired Gil. But she found a way to make it work with him, and she was confident she'd find a way here too. 

She ignores the voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Rio's, as it keeps trying to remind her she's still focusing on the wrong problem. 

He had a point about her not being taken seriously. She thought she could get by on the quality of her work, that she’d build a reputation through her product and it would be enough. She realizes now that she’s also been passively assuming Rio would be there to back her up, to do the hard parts, and that’s not—she wants to be able to stand on her own two feet. She needs it.

As much as she hates to accept it, if Beth wants a place in this world, she needs to be able to handle herself a lot better than she currently can. She'll reluctantly admit she got lucky with Bruno—not just because things would've gone a lot differently if Dean hadn't insisted on that shotgun. 

That thought has Beth dropping the knife she’s chopping onions with and sends her back upstairs. She scrambles for the gun and the clip in the nightstand—steadfastly ignoring the box lurking in the corner of the drawer—just to have some means of protection close by, even if she highly doubts she'll need it. When she looks up how to load and fire the pistol on YouTube, not entirely sure she accurately remembers what Rio had shown her back when he first said he'd teach her, she's forced to accept he might have made more than one point about her ability to play in this league.

So, fine. He was right. Where does that leave her?

She fires up a burner—gas range, the dream—and starts heating oil for the base. 

Beth's always thought of herself as a good person. Sure, she's done some bad things—some _really_ bad things—but there’s a line she always strives to stay on the right side of. 

She can rationalize the cash; it's basically Monopoly money. And the pills were helping people who didn't have access to that kind of necessary medication legitimately. It's not like she's ever gotten into real drugs, or guns, or anything violent—not on purpose, anyway. 

But this? Planning cold-blooded murder? To build a _reputation?_ Entirely over that line.

Back when things revolved around Boomer, it felt like a game. Beth was able to plot her moves, think through how they would go, all without knowing what she was really signing up for.

Now she knows.

The ruin of Bruno's chest rises in her mind. As the sweet, metallic, rotting smell of it floods her senses, her hand goes nerveless and she drops the knife she'd been using to scrape diced peppers into the pan nearly on her foot. She gasps, jumping out of the way, and it's like a trigger—she hears the ragged memory of it, sees Rio staggering back, raising a hand to the red blooming on his chest. 

Beth falls back against the island behind her and slides to the floor. She pulls her knees up like they can shield her from the memories and digs the heels of her hands into her eyes like she can force them away. A sob rips from deep within her, echoing around the kitchen. 

She doesn't want this, she doesn't want _any_ of this. 

How is she supposed to _do_ this?

Sobs wrack her body, and Beth lets them come, lets them overwhelm her. She imagines they're washing away her horror, uncertainty, doubt, and fear, leaving behind a cold, crystal clarity of purpose as they trail off with a hiccup.

She remembers the fire, remembers Annie's screams in the video. Remembers Mia in her house, where her kids live.

She wipes her eyes.

Maybe Beth can kill her after all.

—————

It's late when Rio comes back, clearly not expecting to find Beth on the couch when he slips in through the door.

The way he jerks back is profoundly gratifying, and Beth smirks, not taking her attention off of the Words with Friends deathmatch tournament she and Ruby have been locked in for almost eight years now.

"You waitin' up for me, ma?" He asks the question with that low, honey-smooth tone she knows now is entirely intended to put his opponent off balance.

"No." 

Yes, but he doesn't need to know that. She doesn't look away from her phone, trying to figure out what she can do with three Es, a Y, two Us and an R. Beth waits for his next move, not letting the desperate curiosity about what it will be show on her face. 

He’s just barely visible out of the corner of her eye, sucking on his lip as he looks at her. She can see the moment he clocks the gun on the coffee table next to her and realizes where it came from. 

Without saying anything, he heads for the stairs, and she listens hard. She hears rustling, then a pause, then the sound of a drawer quietly sliding open and nothing for a long moment before he shuts it again. 

She made sure to leave the other contents as undisturbed as possible. It's petty, it's oh so petty, but the joy she's getting from being the one to mess with _him_ for once is downright obscene.

There's more rustling, more drawers opening and closing but with a purpose this time, and when he reappears, he's changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt. 

Beth blinks. It's so casual, she's momentarily disarmed by the intimacy of it. 

"What's that smell?" he asks, padding barefoot down the stairs and heading for the once more pristine kitchen. After she made her mess, she found herself unable to leave it there. Unlike some people, she's not an animal. 

_I imprinted myself all over your kitchen,_ she doesn't say. _Leave me here again and I’ll repaint the walls something bright and neon._

"Fresh bread," she calls, smiling sweetly, daring him to react, to balk at her invasion of his space, and when he glances back at her she sees his eyes light as he recognizes the challenge. "I cooked too, there are leftovers in the fridge."

“Made yourself at home, huh?”

“I had a lot of time on my hands,” she shoots back. “Hard not to poke around.”

He ignores her taunt, fixes himself a plate, and surprises her by bringing it over to the couch—based on how clean and orderly the loft is, she would've figured he was a table or counter only eater. But without fanfare, he sets it down on the coffee table and drops down next to her. 

He’s close enough that he’s nearly sitting on her feet. When he leans forward, humming happily as he tries a bite of the chicken, Beth's heart skips a beat, her breathing stuttering at the serene domesticity of the moment. Of course he'd find a way to one-up her at her own game. 

"Try the bread," she says, nudging him in the thigh with her toe, equal parts wanting to keep up and wanting him to actually try it. There's something unspeakably satisfying about cooking for people who appreciate it. 

She waits until he takes a bite—this time, the hum is so satisfied it's nearly a growl, and Beth feels that telltale heat start to spark and twist—before she sets her phone down and speaks.

"I need to go back to my house tomorrow," she begins and a part of her flutters, alight with some emotion she can't name, when he freezes nearly imperceptibly for a moment before nodding. 

"A'ight."

"Then I was hoping you could take me shooting again," she says, unable to stop the smirk that curls around her mouth when he coughs, clearly caught off guard by the follow-up. "I don't—I don't know exactly what I'm going to do. Not yet. But you were right, I have to do something. So, I want to be prepared."

She expected him to smirk, to laugh, to be smug and self-satisfied at the victory. But instead, he sits back, draping an arm over the back of the couch, and watches her with steady, dark eyes. Like he knows what this costs her. 

And he does, she realizes with a jolt. At some point, he faced this exact moment, this same choice. 

He doesn't answer right away, but he studies her, absently running a hand over her foot, sending warmth shooting through her at the unguarded, seemingly instinctual touch. She has no defense for how much it soothes and comforts her. 

"A'ight," he says again, softer this time. 

"Okay," she responds with a short nod, hoping the gesture's decisiveness will help shore up her wobbly resolve. 

He smiles faintly, a complicated combination of fondness, amusement, and something prickly and skittish—she recognizes it because she knows it’s mirrored on her own face. It's such a new thing, this gift of an unfiltered glimpse at what he's feeling, that for a minute she can't do anything other than blink at him as she takes it in.

Then something new moves into his eyes. The light touch on her foot turns intentional, his thumb stroking higher, brushing against the delicate knob of her ankle, and it's like he's lit a sparkler, heat and anticipation crackling to life along her nerves. 

She wets her lips, sliding her foot across his thigh, reveling in the way his cock twitches as she touches him. His hand slips higher up her leg, long fingers wrapping around her calf, pulling her legs apart so he can twist and lean between them. 

Beth makes no move to come towards him, letting him crawl up her body. His fingers trail up the outside of her thigh, the touch no less electric even with the thin material of her sweatpants between his hand and her skin. 

Braced above her and leaning in—Rio’s lips a hair's breadth from hers, so close she can feel the faintest hint of contact when she swallows—he stops, looking down at her, his eyes flickering back and forth between hers. There's a question in his gaze, but she doesn't know what it is, she only knows what she wants, so she surges up, wrapping her arms around his neck and sealing her mouth to his. 

She kisses him, all heat and force, and a desperation she didn't realize she felt until she lets it out. He returns the kiss with equal urgency, licking into her mouth like he wants to swallow her whole. 

It's sloppy and messy and wild, like a dam has broken, and she's drowning in it. She tries to pour everything she doesn't know how to say—that she wants him, wants _them_ —into her touch, and she swears he does the same. 

His hands are nearly as frantic as hers as they tug at each other's clothes, making just enough room to come together. The look he gives her when he sees she’s wearing his briefs is so downright filthy she feels it all the way down to her toes. When he slides into her, the moan Beth lets out echoes throughout the loft the same way her sobs did earlier.

Her breath is ragged and harsh against his neck, and he buries his face in her hair, his forehead pressed against her temple, and the sound of him panting in her ear is all she can hear. She closes her eyes and lets herself drown in the feel and the smell and the sounds of him moving over and in her thinking _this, this, this._

She wants _this_ , and a part of her is terrified of what she'll do to keep it. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth jerks awake with a gasp, panic spiking as she realizes she can't move, she's—she's…
> 
> The arm Rio's draped across her stomach stirs, his hand curling around her side in a seemingly reflexive hold before letting go.
> 
> "What's wrong," he asks, his voice thick and fuzzy with sleep. 
> 
> Beth takes a deep breath, reorienting herself. She's at Rio's, it was only a nightmare. She swallows hard, bitter disappointment coating her throat. She'd gone over a week without one, and she thought—foolishly hoped—they were done.
> 
> "Nothing," she says, rolling over to face him. There's enough faint light from the street that she can see his eyes are closed, she doesn't think he's all the way awake. "Go back to sleep."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, my absolute, undying gratitude and appreciation for [nickmillerscaulk](https://nickmillerscaulk.tumblr.com/)for her endless patience, brilliant editing, and general all-around awesomeness. sorry to like, brag and stuff but she is the literal best beta reader ever. 
> 
> additional shout out and gratitude parade to [foxmagpie](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/) for helping me untangle the plot and character beats for this chapter and the next when I started panicking about getting to the ending, and also for conducting some v important research on the limits of FaceID bc my phone is old. you are a treasure.

The boom of the gunshot echoes around the clearing, unbearably loud, and reignites the ringing that had only just started to fade in Beth's ears.

"Shouldn't I have some kind of ear or eye protection?" she'd asked when they started. It hadn't occurred to her to ask the first time they'd done this, but she'd done her own research—well, watched some YouTube videos—since then.

"You plan on havin' earmuffs and goggles every time you're in a situation you might need to shoot? No?" Rio had said when she shook her head. "Then you should probably get used to not using 'em."

Beth squints at the target, an ominous outline of a person-shaped space overlaid on a bullseye pinned to the side of a dilapidated barn. She viscerally hates the reminder of what she's practicing to do, but when she'd said as much, he'd given her a long look.

"Lyin' to yourself about why you're here won't help anyone, darlin'."

She finds the new hole up and to the left—well outside the outline—among a cluster of at least six other shots in that corner of the page. It's almost like she was aiming there instead of the center. There's another cluster in the lower left, and then a handful more to the far right from when she'd tried to overcorrect her aim. Very few were inside the target shape itself.

_Firm stance, braced but not locked arms, both eyes open, pull the trigger on an exhale._

Beth fires again, rocking back on recoil but not staggering. She lowers the gun and peers at the target. 

"It's still left," she says, huffing out a frustrated breath that blows her bangs off her forehead. "What am I doing wrong?"

"Flinchin' ahead of time," Rio says without hesitation, but he sounds preoccupied. When she looks over, he's leaned up against the side of his car on his phone. Again. It had been buzzing regularly the whole ride out of the city, and once they arrived, after giving Beth a rundown of the basics, Rio'd been texting nearly constantly.

"Hey!"

He looks up and eyeballs the target. "Or yankin' the trigger, not squeezin' it. 'S why your shit's going left."

Beth frowns, peering across the field, then studying the gun. "How do I stop doing that?"

"Practice, go slow."

"I _am."_

"Slower," he says. She can tell without looking, from the rote way he says it, that he's back on his phone.

She takes her stance, wiggling a little, digging the balls of her feet into the soft ground. When she raises the gun, she forces herself to keep both eyes open, to let them adjust down the barrel. She takes a slow breath, lets it out, and fires. She still jerks back, but the shot goes much closer to the center, nearly right on the edge of the outline.

"Did you—" But when Beth turns to Rio, her excitement at the improvement, however mild, fizzles as she sees he's still on his phone. "I'm sorry, am I keeping you from something important?"

He looks up at that, eyebrow raised, and Beth can't tell if he's saying yes or is irritated at how she's acting about it—or both. Probably both, now that she thinks about it, but too damn bad. If he wants her to _handle_ things, she needs to be ready for it. 

"I thought you were going to teach me," she says, raising an eyebrow right back at him. He's not the only one getting annoyed.

"What you think this is, then?"

"Well, you're not doing a good job." Beth pointing to all the bullet holes sprinkled around the edges of the page.

"A'ight," Rio says, pushing off the car and sliding his phone into his back pocket. "Show me what you got."

Beth suppresses a sigh—she has been, he just hasn’t been paying attention—and turns back to the target, taking her stance. 

But she can't suppress her sharp inhale when Rio slots himself in behind her, his chest against her back, his arms coming up to bracket hers, and his hands wrapping around hers, gently cupping the still-bandaged one.

"Feel me breathing, ma?" he asks, his breath warm against her ear, and she shivers, making him laugh softly. "Close your eyes."

She does, and _oh_ , it's like cutting off one sense makes her hyper-aware of the others. Her entire world narrows down to every point of contact between them, the feel of him warm and sure, pressed up behind her. She lets out a shaky inhale, and he laughs again, a smug sort of pleasure threading through it, which only compounds the issue. Beth's pulse pounds like a bass drum.

"You gotta concentrate, yeah?"

"I'm _trying_ ," she retorts.

"Breathe in," he says, taking an exaggeratedly deep breath, his chest pushing against her back, and she inhales, matching his speed.

"Breathe out," he says, letting out a slow, controlled exhale that flutters her hair and tickles her ear, her neck, her cheek. Forcing herself to stay focused, Beth holds still and breathes with him.

His satisfied hum of approval’s an arrow straight through her, settling low in her belly where the heat that doesn't ever seem to fully dissipate is pooling and turning molten.

"Again."

This time when they breathe out, he tightens his fingers around hers.

"Squeeze the trigger, don't pull it," he says, his fingertip pressing down on her pointer knuckle slowly, guiding her movement. 

She still jumps when the shot fires, but he's there to absorb the movement, holding her steady. When they lower the gun, Beth opens her eyes and sees the new hole is much closer to the center of the target. Close enough that it would definitely be a chest shot. 

Beth swallows back the bile rising in her throat. 

"Now you do it," Rio breathes against her ear, and she swallows again, but for a different reason. 

How can she possibly be this turned on while she's doing what she's doing? Rio shifts against her. How can _he?_

"Keep your eyes open, you leadin’ this time," he instructs, staying right where he is, wrapped around her. "Breathe in."

Beth takes a deep breath and feels him match her. When she exhales and squeezes the trigger, he follows the motion, not exerting any pressure, only offering support. Her body jerks when the gun goes off, but he catches her and she adjusts her stance, finding her balance. 

The shot lands in the center mass again.

"Good," he says, his voice a low rumble against her skin. She licks her lips, leaning back against him slightly, and he ducks his head, rubbing his nose lightly against the edge of her ear. She feels the ghost of his lips against the soft skin just below it, and then he steps back, not far enough that she can't still feel the heat of him, but enough that she sways, her body chasing the lost contact. He drops his hands to her hips, giving her enough room to hold herself up, but he doesn’t let go—like he can't stop touching her any more than she doesn't want him to. 

"Again."

Beth lifts the gun, bracing her cheek on her extended arm, and feels Rio’s fingers flex against her. She wonders if this is hard for him, watching her shoot, knowing what she's practicing for. She exhales and fires. The recoil doesn't throw her as much this time, but the shot goes wide towards the right. 

She may not be improving, but at least she's not failing in the same way.

Rio tsks in disapproval, dropping his hands and stepping all the way back. "You shifted your aim at the last second."

"I didn't!"

When she turns to look at him, he only shrugs. Incensed and determined to prove him wrong, she turns back to the target, aims, and fires. Or, tries to anyway. The gun only clicks, empty.

"Can't lose track of your bullets, ma," he says, pulling a full clip out of his pocket and handing it to her.

"I didn't lose track," Beth mutters, struggling a little to remember how to reload, but refusing to ask for help. "I just...forgot this time." 

It takes a minute for Beth to find her way, but she gets there. Rio gives her time to figure it out, not saying anything while she fiddles with the pistol. Once she's cocked it, she retakes her stance and fires, taking care to slowly, smoothly pull the trigger. The shot still goes wide.

"I don't _get it!_ " she cries, just barely stopping herself from stomping her foot. "What am I doing wrong?"

"You consider maybe you're trippin' yourself up?" He's watching her, arms crossed, the first hint of impatience tightening the corners of his eyes. At least he's not back on his phone. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"It means maybe you're fuckin' yourself up because you know what you're practicing for, and you don't want to do it."

Beth blinks at him. "I'm practicing to shoot someone; of course I don't want to do it."

"So, what's your plan then? How you gonna get her to stop comin' at you?" 

"I...I'm still working on it." Beth shifts her weight, uncomfortable. There has to be another way to get Mia to stop. She thinks of Gil, of his boss, wonders if there's an angle there. 

"Yeah? What you thinkin'? That you can go talk to a manager?"

Beth rolls her eyes at the mocking lilt. 

"You want to call the feds on her?" he continues. 

Actually, that could maybe work. 

"Nah, that ain't it," he says, clearly reading her train of thought. "Even if that didn't paint you as a snitch to anyone payin' attention, she'd only come back mad as ever and make up for not takin’ you out for good the first time."

 _You didn't,_ she thinks, watching him. 

He watches her right back. _You know that's different,_ he seems to say. 

"What if I set her up so that the feds found her on their own?"

"You even know which feds we're talkin' about?"

Beth frowns, that's a good point, actually. She hadn't thought that far ahead yet—hadn't thought about any of it really, but she isn't ready to admit he has a point there.

"Canada," she guesses.

From his exasperated, slightly disgusted look, either she was wrong, or he picked up on the fact that it was a wild stab in the dark.

"You're gonna need to know a lot more about her operation to make a move, ma."

"How am I supposed to find that information?" she asks, frustration rising. "It's not like I can Google it!"

"Oh, I don't know," Rio says, sarcastically bright, pulling out his phone again and swiping it open. "Maybe you gotta ask somebody."

She squints at him, trying to figure out what he might know. 

"Not me," he says, glancing up and rolling his eyes. "Mia and I ain't exactly keepin' each other up to date on the ins and outs of our businesses anymore."

"I'm allowed to ask you for help, right?" Beth asks. She can't tell if he's being deliberately unhelpful for some mysterious reason or if she's breaking some rule she doesn't know about.

"You sure that's a good idea?" He looks all the way up her at that, putting his phone away. "I got three scars to remind me what happened the last time you asked for my help." 

Beth refuses to flinch.

"You could try giving me the kind of help I actually ask for this time," she says, keeping her voice even.

"Oh yeah?" He leans back against the car, crossing his arms. "What's that?"

"A _hint!"_

A smile flickers across his face. "All I got is a pawnshop in Windsor. Rumor is you wanna talk to her, that's where you go to make an appointment. You keep an eye on that area, and you might learn somethin' useful." 

Beth knows her mouth's gone slightly slack, but it takes her a moment to recover enough from the information so freely given to close it. 

"Thank you," she says, resisting the urge to add something snarky when he's actually being slightly helpful. 

He acknowledges her thanks with a shallow nod, that faint smile flickering again before disappearing entirely, leaving his face grave. 

"You still gotta be ready when the time comes," he says, gesturing at the gun. "If it ain't Mia, it's someone else. You wanna step up, there's an endless line of motherfuckers waitin' to take you down."

There's an odd, aggressive edge in his voice, and Beth can't tell what he means by it. 

Instead of answering, she turns back to the target, sights, and fires off three shots in rapid succession. The first one goes wide, but the second hits the outline, and the last one is nearly dead center. Beth turns back to Rio, tipping her head towards the target in case he missed it.

He raises an eyebrow, shrugging like she's made a point for him. "What'd I tell you? You're the one gettin' in your way."

"How is this not hard for you?" she demands, wanting to shake him up, to rattle his composure the way he constantly dismantles hers.

"What, seein' you with a gun?" He laughs once, sharp and staccato. "Sweetheart, if I still got nervous every time I was around someone who shot at me, I wouldn't be able to do what I do. What _you_ want to do."

That aggressive edge is still there. If anything, it's sharper than before, like Rio wants her to know he's not sheltering her anymore. Beth bristles, refusing to let him use fear or guilt to get her to back down if that's what this is.

"Not that. Okay, not _just_ that," she amends when he raises a second eyebrow. "All of this.”

He looks at her blankly. 

"Mia," she clarifies. "She was—is—someone you, you know..."

She can't bring herself to say ‘care about,’ but Rio obviously absorbs her meaning from the way his mouth thins out and eyes go far away. Beth shifts her weight again, toeing at a tuft of grass, patting it down in a nervous little circle in front of her. She hears his phone buzz, but he doesn't make a move to check it.

"She made her choices," Rio says eventually. 

Beth nods, like she understands, like that means anything to her, concentrating hard on her grass circle. She doesn’t need to know. She _doesn’t._

"What happened between the two of you?"

He's quiet so long Beth doesn't think he's going to answer, but he always surprises her. 

"She wanted to be on top more than she wanted...nothing was ever enough for her. Not when we were kids, not when we were grown. She was always lookin' for more and wouldn't let shit get in the way of her gettin' it if she could help it. Got to the point where I was in her way."

"And she came after you?"

Rio nods.

"Why didn't you…" Beth trails off, waving the gun weakly. 

The muscle in his jaw twitches, but the rest of his body completely stills for a moment. He looks away, crossing his arms across his chest and swallowing hard. The wings of the bird at his throat ripple like it wants to take flight.

He loved her, Beth realizes. Maybe he still does—not actively, but in that way you can never entirely stop feeling something for someone you once loved fiercely. Some complicated snarl of sympathy and jealousy radiates through her chest, making her bones ache and breath stutter. She doesn't even know entirely what the jealousy centers around: that Rio felt something like that for Mia at all, or that she doesn't think she ever loved Dean with the kind of ferocity that leaves that sort of echo behind. 

Beth chews on her lip. She hates the position he's in, that both of them are in. She hates that she's played a heavy hand in all of this. Maybe if she'd listened to Rio in the first place and kept her mouth shut that night, they wouldn't be here.

Fighting back an overwhelming wave of regret, Beth steps up to Rio, laying a hand on his elbow. He looks down at her, startled. 

"I'm sorry.”

"It was always going to end up here, ma. Only a matter of time."

He says it like it’s a simple statement of fact, but there’s a finality behind it that makes her feel so, so heavy.

"Let's go," Beth says, abruptly unable to have this conversation anymore.

"Go where?"

"Ho—to get something to eat, to do anything else." 

The corner of Rio’s mouth lifts, and he reaches up, toying with the ends of her hair. Not quite his old gesture, something new. His fingertips rest on her collarbone, warm and rough, and Beth somehow feels the soft touch on every inch of her skin.

"Hit five in the center, and we can go." 

Beth sighs and turns back to the target. 

"Are you going to help, or what?" she says over her shoulder and grins to herself when he steps up behind her.

—————

"I don't understand how you can live like this," Beth says, fishing the crumpled styrofoam cup out from under her foot where she accidentally crushed it trying to stretch out her rapidly numbing leg. It was empty, at least.

"Excuse you, do I come into your car and criticize the kid debris all over it?" Annie asks, punctuating the question with a slurp of what has to be the final remains of the milkshake she's been loudly and obnoxiously working on for the last half hour. 

Honestly, the fact that she's made it last that long is ridiculous. Beth remembers a time when sugar couldn't exist in Annie’s orbit for longer than thirty seconds before it'd be inhaled, and she’d be climbing the walls. Literally, Beth recalls distantly. 

"You do, actually," Beth says, popping a french fry in her mouth. "Even though my so-called _debris_ is extremely organized, not to mention caused by actual children. Unlike this." She waves a hand around the interior of the car. Annie's vehicles have always served as a combination of transportation, closet, and garbage can. 

"I can't believe I took a day off for this," Ruby says from the passenger seat. 

"Yeah, how long are we doing this? What are we looking for?" Annie asks.

"I don't know, okay?" Beth blows out a breath, fluttering her bangs and turns back to the window, focusing on the facade of the pawnshop across and several storefronts down the street. "Anyone familiar, I guess? One of the guys who wrecked the store?"

"And then what?" Annie presses. "Do we follow them? Snatch them up off the street? Rough 'em up a little?"

"I said I don't _know_ ," Beth snaps, stung by the skepticism, already on-edge over the dwindling timeline she'd given herself to figure this out before Saturday. "I'm making this up as I go along, okay?"

"You don't say," Annie says, widening her eyes in faux amazement. 

"Thank you. Your sarcasm is incredibly helpful."

"I'm just saying, have you considered you're in over your head here, and maybe this is something best left to the…" Annie doesn't say _professionals_ , but she doesn't have to.

"I thought this was what _you_ wanted!" Beth cries, thoroughly fed up with people suggesting she's not capable, not ready, not _enough_. "Weren't you the one talking about the status quo and how I needed to call my own shots? Well, here I am! Calling the shots!"

"Yeah, but B, are these the right shots?" Ruby steps in. "This feels like a move out of _his_ playbook, not yours."

"I don't have a playbook! Is that what everyone wants to hear? I figured out how to make cash, I’m still working on the rest of it."

"So why don't you like, divide and conquer?" Annie asks. "Play to your strengths."

"Because apparently it doesn't work like that," Beth grumbles. "I don't have the...the street cred—"

Annie snorts, but Beth ignores her.

"—or whatever if I want people to take me, us, seriously."

"What do you need to do to earn it, Beth?" Ruby asks, watching her intently, as though she's afraid she already knows the answer.

Beth shrugs, uncomfortable at the scrutiny. "Let's worry about getting there first."

"Wait, what does she need to do?" Annie asks, looking between them like she's trying to follow a fast-moving tennis match. 

"You know," Ruby widens her eyes meaningfully. 

Annie frowns, shaking her head, confused.

Beth stares at the pawnshop, willing someone she recognizes to come in or out, so she has an excuse to cut this conversation off.

"Boomer," is all Ruby has to say.

"Beth, seriously?" Annie gasps. "We're waiting out here so you can stalk and kill your boyfriend's ex?"

"That's not—he’s not—I'm—" Beth sputters. "She tried to kill us. _"_

She turns back to them, and the horror and judgment on their faces only adds to the acidic mix already churning in her stomach as she follows that thought through to its conclusion. Maybe the fries were a bad idea.

"You were fine with it when it was Boomer."

"Uh, I wasn't," Ruby says.

"Yeah, but that's Boomer." Annie flails a hand at the dashboard, towards the pawnshop. "This is, you know, a real person."

Ruby rolls her eyes. "Boomer’s a real person."

"I mean, kind of?" Annie turns back to Beth. "Besides, no offense or anything, but I guess I didn't like, I don't know…"

"What?"

"You weren’t going to do it," Annie says with a shrug. "But now, well. You know, you have."

Beth blanches, her mind spinning as she tries to figure out how Annie found out about Bruno. 

"Gang nem—frie—" Annie stops, frowns. "I still don't know what I should call him."

Beth focuses on her few remaining french fries, arranging and rearranging them in the little paper cup, hoping the conversation will die without her participation.

She looks up to see Annie and Ruby attempting a silent debate and nearly sighs.

"So," Ruby draws the word out, giving Beth a second to prepare. "How's that going?"

Beth eyes them warily, trying to assess how they're feeling about it. "Fine."

Annie scoffs, disgusted. "Sorry sis, we're going to need a little more than that if you're going to practically move in with a guy—"

She rolls right over Beth's protesting squawk.

"—under normal circumstances, let alone this batshit crazy whatever." She makes an encompassing gesture in Beth's direction. "Start talkin'."

"I didn't move in with him."

"Kinda did," Annie says. "Find My Friends, remember? You've spent the last few nights downtown."

Beth frowns. She forgot Annie had turned that on and she's not sure how she feels about her movements being so trackable. 

The last few days have been like an oasis, something precious and unexpected that she instinctively feels should be a secret. With the Paper Porcupine out of commission and the kids with Dean—willingly this time, she can still talk to them every day—it's almost like Beth's been able to take a vacation from her life. Aside from the occasional passing fantasy, it's not a situation she'd ever expected to find herself in—how could it be, with four children and a husband who never had to take care of himself.

Add in the Rio of it all, and everything becomes downright surreal. When things had been good between them—in that brief place between bathroom breaks and goodbyes—Beth never allowed herself to dwell on the softness she got glimpses of between the sharp edges. The closest she came to letting herself think about what being with him would be like was during those months when he'd been...when she'd been getting close to Rhea. 

"Oh gross, look at her, she's glazing over. Stop thinking about sex!"

"I wasn't!" Beth protests.

"What's the deal with you two now?" Ruby asks, attempting to refocus the conversation. 

"I don't know," Beth admits. "We haven't really...talked."

Annie makes a disgusted sound. "Dong fog."

"About that!" Beth continues, defensive. "We've talked about other stuff."

"Like what?" Ruby presses and Beth's starting to feel distinctly ganged up on.

"Like, this," she says, gesturing out the window. "Business, the future."

She doesn't miss the significant look Annie and Ruby share. 

"What?"

They have another silent conversation, Annie raising her eyebrows, Ruby widening her eyes, then Annie shaking her head in return. 

_"What?"_

They turn to her in unison, Annie's mouth already open, and Beth can tell she's gearing up to let loose, but Ruby puts a placating hand on her arm and takes over. 

"We're worried, B. Can you blame us? A few weeks ago you were practically catatonic on your living room floor, terrified out of your mind that he was going to kill you—"

"Not to mention the fact that before that, you thought _you'd_ murdered _him_ ," Annie bursts out, rolling her eyes at Ruby's exasperated glance. "What? I'm just saying, I thought I'd cornered the Marks Sisters Fucked Up Relationships Market, but this takes the cake, runs away with it, and smashes it all over the ground."

"To Annie's point," Ruby continues. "You guys have a lot of, um, _extreme_ baggage that it doesn't sound like you've dealt with."

They had, though, to an extent. Beth thinks of the night in her kitchen when Rio held her hands and helped her breathe through her panic. But she hasn't told—can't tell—them about any of that. How does she even begin to explain the idea that attempted murder can be so easily rendered water under the bridge. 

_You're the only one that knows if you got it in you._

"We're working on it," Beth says, turning back to the window, staring at the pawnshop like it'll give her the answers. 

The car's quiet for a minute, and then Beth hears the seats creak. She can see them having another silent conversation—this one far more animated, they've added pointing and hand waving—out of the corner of her eye. 

"Where's all of this coming from?" she asks, turning back to face them before they can ambush her again. "You guys were fine with it the other night."

Ruby blinks, opening and closing her mouth like she's looking for something diplomatic to say, but Annie beats her to it. 

"Uh, hate to break it to you," Annie says, staring at Beth like she's some kind of dangerous lunatic. "But there is a world of difference between ‘fine with it’ and ‘confident the scary psycho killer that likes you will protect you from the scary psycho killer that doesn't.’"

"He's _not—"_

_"Annie!"_

_"What?"_ Annie cries, throwing up her hands, shooting a glare at Ruby. "Don't pretend like I wasn't the only one thinking it!"

"That is _not_ what I was thinking," Ruby assures Beth, ignoring Annie's betrayed protest. "But I do think you're getting into some pretty deep water, babe, and I want to make sure you're thinking it all the way through."

"I'm figuring it out." Maybe she should break out her calligraphy set and put that on little cards she can hand out instead of saying it over and over. She might need more ink.

"Just be careful, okay?" Ruby says, grabbing Annie's arm to hold her back again. Annie purses her lips, but only takes another long slurp from her milkshake. 

Another long silence falls, but at least this one's less loaded than the last, and Beth starts to relax.

"How _is_ the sex, though?" Ruby asks, and Beth chokes.

"Oh, _God,_ can you _not?"_ Annie yells. "That is my _sister!"_

"Bitch, please," Ruby retorts. "Like you haven't wondered. All that focus and those hands?"

Ruby fans herself, laughing as Annie howls in protest. Beth can feel her blush instantly burst across every inch of her skin, and she slumps down in her seat, squirming a little at the memory of just how focused Rio can get.

"Not like, the specifics under these circumstances," Annie says, disgusted. 

"Fine! Forget I asked!" _Later,_ Ruby mouths at Beth. 

Beth smiles weakly at her, before turning back to the window, any amusement dropping away. 

There hasn't been any movement in the hours that they've been parked there. Try as she might, it's getting harder and harder to ignore the truth, even without it being thrown in her face: her clock is running down, and Beth has no idea what her next move is going to be.

—————

There's a gun in her hand, but it's not the one from this morning. It's the gold one, glinting in the moonlight, and it's heavy, heavier than it should be. She can barely lift it. 

She braces herself and fires—dead center.

"Again," Rio says from behind her.

She fires again, way left this time.

"What am I doing wrong?" she asks. But when she turns around to ask him, there's no one there, and she's still facing the target. The tears in the paper are shredded, bigger than she remembers, bigger than they should be for such a small bullet.

"Again," he says.

Beth spins around, but there still isn't anyone there and the target’s followed her again, like she never turned around at all. Now the tears in the paper are even bigger, darker, almost like they're bleeding. Something's coming. Beth knows it without knowing how she knows, something bad, something she has to be ready for. 

She can feel her heart beating in her throat, and she tries to shove it down, away, but her breath is coming faster and faster because this isn't right, this isn't how it went, and she doesn't know—

"Again," Rio says.

Beth jerks awake with a gasp, panic spiking as she realizes she can't move, she's—she's…

The arm Rio's draped across her stomach stirs, his hand curling around her side in a seemingly reflexive hold before letting go.

"What's wrong," he asks, his voice thick and fuzzy with sleep. 

Beth takes a deep breath, reorienting herself. She's at Rio's, it was only a nightmare. She swallows hard, bitter disappointment coating her throat. She'd gone over a week without one, and she thought—foolishly hoped—they were done.

"Nothing," she says, rolling over to face him. There's enough faint light from the street that she can see his eyes are closed, she doesn't think he's all the way awake. "Go back to sleep."

But he blinks them open, not saying anything, only looking at her, waiting.

"Nightmare," she admits, shrugging uncomfortably, not sure how to talk about it. Not sure she wants to.

Rio doesn't ask, though; instead, he hums a thoughtful, understanding noise, and Beth's heart turns over as he strokes his hand up her arm, trailing his fingers along her jaw. 

"You good?" 

Beth nods, and he hums again softer this time. "Come 'ere."

She hesitates—momentarily frozen at the intimacy of intentionally being held while she sleeps—before tentatively scooting a little closer. Rio smiles faintly and pulls her in, rolling her over so he can wrap himself around her back, winding his arms around her and burying his face in her hair. She can feel his breath tickling the back of her neck.

Lying in the dark, his warm, sturdy weight behind her, Beth's nightmare-stiff muscles start to slowly relax, one fiber at a time. 

It's...surprisingly nice. The night of the fire—when she'd been so wrecked and overwhelmed by everything that falling asleep had been less a conscious choice and more an inevitable crash—was the first time she'd slept wrapped up in another person in longer than she can remember. She's pretty sure the last time was with one of the kids, so it was an entirely different sort of thing. 

With everything moving so fast, she hadn't had a chance to consider what it would be like to sleep with someone new. If it would be weird or comforting. If she'd be able to do it at all. 

In a way, the pace has almost been a relief; she hasn't had the chance to overthink anything. She knows that Ruby and Annie are right—they've been existing in a bubble, and it can't last—but she wants to enjoy the floating a little bit longer. For maybe the first time in her life, she's making choices purely based on how she feels in the moment, discovering what she _wants_. 

And what Rio wants, which is to touch her constantly, apparently. He's always been tactile: squeezing her shoulder, grabbing her hand, caressing her face. Even as her body thrilled at every instance—her mind hoarding the sense memories to replay when she finds herself alone—she always assumed it was part of some larger game to throw her off balance. She was sure that had to be part of it; he wasn't shy about using any weapon in his arsenal to win their games. 

But the last few days felt different. Once Rio started, once he realized he was allowed, he couldn't stop with the small, casual, almost unconscious seeming contact. 

She was brushing her teeth yesterday morning when he came in to brush his—the simple mundanity of it nearly blew Beth's mind—and ran his hand up and down her spine, not even looking at her. Right up until he did, turning to her and hooking a finger into the waistband of her sweatpants, tugging her in and her pants down in one continuous motion. 

It was like a switch was flipped, and he stopped holding himself back all at once. Like Beth was a finite resource, and he was determined to get as much of her as he could before the supply ran out. 

And it feels good—too good. It’s been so long since Beth felt wanted, desired, she doesn’t know if she can totally bring herself to believe it’s real because of the novelty of it or if it’s something else.

_How do you know this isn’t some new game?_

Almost like Rio can tell she's still lying awake thinking—he can't, his breathing's evened out, and she knows he's fallen back asleep—he shifts, burying his face a little bit deeper in her hair. She can feel his lips just barely brushing against the back of her neck. She strokes a finger along the arm draped over her waist, soft and tentative, yanking it away when he sighs a little. She's hardly able to believe she can do this now, even in the dark when he's fast asleep and never has to know she did. 

She huffs out a frustrated breath.

In her mind, she's been so loud—obvious to the point that she's been afraid she’s given away too much. It’s hard not to feel like she’s handed him an annotated roadmap to the best ways to use her, hurt her, manipulate her.

She thinks back to the afternoon in her room, when she’d finally let herself touch Rio freely, how he’d responded, how right it felt—even tainted by the knowledge it was the last, the only, time she’d be allowed to have it.

She wonders why it was so much easier to accept what she wanted—what he could give her and what could be between them—when it was an ending.

A faint light flashes across the room, his phone, she realizes, still on silent from earlier. He's been on it more than usual lately, texting at all hours and occasionally stepping out to take calls. It'd been buzzing all night, and Beth still has no idea what it was about. When she finally asked, he told her it wasn't important and switched vibrate off so it wouldn't keep disturbing them. 

It bothers her, the not-knowing. She doesn't expect all of Rio's business to be her business, there are plenty of aspects she has no interest in being involved in. But there's a difference in being involved and being kept in the dark, and she refuses to accept the latter from anyone anymore.

Rio's phone lights up again, another call coming in. It occurs to Beth that she doesn't think he's looked at it in hours, and if someone's called repeatedly, there's probably something wrong. What if it’s about Marcus?

It's that thought that has her sliding out of his arms, careful not to disturb him. He's such a light sleeper she's discovered, and she wonders if he's always been that way or if it came along with being a parent like it did for her. Or with being a criminal, she supposes; it's not really a profession conducive to letting your guard down. Either way, she doesn't want to wake him up when there's a chance nothing’s actually wrong. She's already slightly embarrassed that she's even checking his phone for him. 

It's not about Marcus, though, or so it seems. It's not Rhea calling, but rather Mick, she thinks. The contact's only listed as M. 

It’s not...it can’t be. It has to be Mick. 

There's an oddly hollow feeling in her chest, not quite an ache, but an echo of one. It’s something foreboding and for a second she’s thrown right back into her nightmare, all of her muscles knotting back up and tensing to run. 

They've— _he's_ —called a lot, she sees. Texted too. Rio has the text preview turned off, so all she can see is the number of notifications, and when she expands the stack, they scroll for a while. Whoever it is has been trying to get ahold of Rio for what looks like hours now. 

Beth glances at the bed, Rio's fast asleep, an arm stretched across the space she'd been lying in, like he's reaching for her. 

The phone lights up again, recapturing her attention—another text. The memory of Rio unlocking his phone flashes through her mind, unsolicited. She's seen him open it enough lately, she's pretty sure she could guess his passcode. 

She shouldn't, though. She should just wait until morning and talk to him about it, tell him how much she can't stand being shut out. He doesn't know what Dean did, how much he lied and hid from her. 

Another text comes in. 

Then again, how many times has he brushed her off, told her to stay in her lane, withheld information? And beyond that, how many times has he completely disregarded her privacy? 

And worse, _what if it isn't Mick?_

Beth looks back down at the phone, thumb hovering. 

She shouldn't.

Then she remembers the sickening, sinking feeling of finding those papers in Dean's office, realizing the depth of his betrayal, doing the math and realizing just how long he'd been lying to her. 

Rio isn't Dean. He's probably the furthest thing from Dean. 

She swipes in a code. Rejected.

Beth lets out the breath she was holding. Annie would probably say that's a sign, right? She should stop snooping and go back to bed. But her thumb moves almost on its own volition, trying a slightly different combination. 

The phone unlocks.

Beth bites her lip, hesitating, then sighing. She pulls up the messages and finds the exchange with M, looking at the last few bubbles. 

_you good?_

_yo_

Not exactly illuminating. The earlier ones are some variation of the same theme, M trying to get Rio's attention, and barring that, asking him to check-in. They're trying to coordinate something, asking for marching orders, and something inside Beth sighs in relief when she decides it’s Mick. It has to be, they know way too much about Rio’s business to be anyone other than his second.

There's a thread of genuine concern in the most recent ones that catches Beth off-guard and makes her think maybe their relationship goes a little deeper. There's a restrained worry that reminds Beth of Ruby—Annie doesn't practice restraint as a general rule—when Beth hasn't responded in a while. 

She keeps scrolling. The messages are somewhat cryptic; there's no identifying detail, but from what Beth can tell, Mick's been working on something—looking for something—for Rio and he's found it and needs either instruction or approval to proceed. 

Beth scrolls further back; whatever Mick's been working on, it isn’t new. She sees where Rio responded _omw_ and realizes the date and time aligns with the other afternoon when Rio left abruptly in the middle of their not-quite fight. 

Bizarrely, there are selfies mixed in with the texts in this part of their exchange. Mick's terrible at his angles and crops, she notes with a smile. Half the time he's halfway out of the frame, it's just part of his head and a whole lot of whatever's in the background. 

She opens one up, trying to get a closer look to figure out what's so special about it, and her eyes catch on a man across the street behind Mick. He's on crutches, standing in front of what looks like a mechanic's open garage, his whole leg swathed in a cast. She's not sure exactly what jumped out at her, but when she zooms in, she realizes he looks familiar and can't quite place him. Is it one of Rio's guys? He's huge and tattooed in a way that wouldn't be out of place in his crew. She can't shake the feeling that it's someone she's seen recently, maybe one of the ones that went to Canada with—

Realization hits so hard it takes her breath away. It's the man Rio shot in the knee that night in the field. One of Mia's men. 

Beth looks up, staring blankly at the shape of Rio, still reaching for her when she isn't there. Puzzle pieces are snapping together in a horrible order. She watches the rise and fall of his chest; it's steady, peaceful. She stares for so long, so intently, her vision goes blurry, and she has to blink to clear it.

With shaking fingers, she closes out that picture and pulls up another. She's pretty sure she knows what she'll find but desperately hopes she's wrong, that it's a coincidence, that there's a totally plausible explanation. 

She scans the background of the next picture, where Mick's on a crowded bar patio, and sure enough, there's a table in the back corner with a group of vaguely familiar men sitting around it. 

Flipping through picture after picture, she sees they're all the same. In every background, she finds someone she recognizes just enough to know that Mick's been following Mia's crew around, watching them and noting their habits, where they can be found.

Beth chokes back something that might be a hysterical laugh, might be a sob. 

_Do we follow them? Snatch them up off the street? Rough 'em up a little?_

Apparently Annie’d been onto something.

Scrolling back to the most recent messages, now that Beth has the context, she can read between the lines. Mick's been snatching them and interrogating them—sometimes with, sometimes without Rio. And they've been doing it the past few days, all the while Rio's been telling her she needs to handle the situation if she wants to stand on her own. 

Even though she told him she would, even though she’s been _trying._

Is that how Rio knew about the pawnshop? Because he’s been tracking Mia down on his own? Behind Beth’s back? The last puzzle piece falls into place, the picture complete.

He's been _lying_ to her.

She closes out of the messages, locks the phone, and sets it down on the dresser with exquisite care. Partially because she's trying to stay quiet, not ready to face him if he wakes up. Partially because if she doesn't exercise total control over herself right now, there's a good chance she'll start destroying everything in arms reach until there's nothing left. 

Bracing herself against the dresser, she takes a deep breath, then another. Her heart's racing, her head's spinning, and something's rising in her throat, burning and spreading like poison through her veins. She swallows hard, trying to fight it back. 

Rio _lied._

Maybe not outright, but absolutely through omission. He told her she needed to handle things if she wanted to be a boss. He let her think he understood, that he was stepping back to give her room to do it, that he believed she could do it. 

That he believed in _her_.

The hollow ache in her chest gains a new dimension—now it has claws and teeth and cutting edges, Beth feels it slicing little pieces off of her heart with every breath she takes. The something in her throat is suddenly a sob that she has to hold back. 

She can't be here any longer, she realizes, abruptly feeling horribly, unbelievably exposed. She can't—it's too much, all the things she's feeling. She needs to think, to catch her breath, to get herself back under control. She absolutely cannot let him see how deeply he's betrayed her, that he has that kind of power, that she's that vulnerable—that weak.

Without looking at the bed or Rio in it, knowing how tenuous her grip on herself is right now, Beth creeps around the room, gathering her shirt and underwear and grabbing her own phone off the bedside table. She pulls up Lyft on autopilot and tiptoes down the stairs, not letting herself look back.

Her car's arrived by the time she finishes collecting the rest of her clothes and her bag—the few things she immediately needs—and makes a point to not think about how much of herself she's left scattered around the loft, how thoroughly she'd inhabited Rio's home in so little time, how far he'd let her in.

She doesn't let herself think about anything at all as she slips out, the front door shutting behind her with a heavy, final thud. 

—————

Beth doesn't cry. 

A part of her wonders at that; she'd cried when she found out Dean cheated. Huge heaving sobs, a tangible expression of her fathomless grief streaming down her face. Grief she now thinks might have been more about the end of her orderly world, and less about Dean himself. 

It was only after she’d found the financial statements that an ice-cold sense of clarity settled over her, freezing every emotion, honing them into a series of razor-sharp edges. There'd been a sense of purpose that came with that blow. She'd known what she had to do, if not the exact steps, then the shape of it.

This is different. 

This is a rug pulled out from under her to reveal a seemingly bottomless pit. This is an inability to catch her breath or get her bearings. This is a sucker punch, the pain radiating from her heart made all the more acute by the fact that she hadn't seen it coming. 

Rio's kept things from her before, he's disappeared when she needed his help, he's kidnapped her and put a gun in her hand more times than she can count. Though he’s genuinely terrified her on occasion, Beth has always, always thought that underneath it all, he's seen her potential, her edge—her ability to meet him as an equal even when she doesn’t see it in herself.

_I think you could be something._

She hadn't realized how much his belief in her had become a beacon, a guiding light, a north star, until now—now that it had been snuffed out, leaving her alone in the all-encompassing dark.

Still, she doesn't cry. 

Letting herself into her house, Beth looks at her phone again, but there isn't anything new. She must have woken Rio when she left because it had lit up as she was sliding into the Lyft. But she'd rejected the call, cutting it off and doing the same when he immediately called back. He hadn't called since. 

She heads straight for the bourbon, pouring herself a shot and downing it immediately before pouring another one, hoping the alcohol will soothe the throbbing, burning ache that's somehow permeated every one of her bones. She considers getting drunk enough to pass out—to keep herself from spending the night lying awake, staring at the ceiling, going round and round in the same circles over and over again, incessantly prodding the open wound in her mind. Deciding in favor of that plan, she downs her drink and pours a third.

But when she walks into her bedroom, she screams, jumping back and nearly dropping her glass as she's met with a familiar silhouette sitting on the edge of her bed, tension radiating off of him in the rigid, hard lines of his profile. 

"How did you get in here?" Beth asks, fumbling for the light. 

"Locks ain't shit," Rio says, jerking his head towards the French doors. 

He's thrown a navy zip-up hoodie over a wrinkled white t-shirt and grey sweatpants. It's the most rumpled and mismatched she's ever seen him. He must've pulled on the first things he grabbed and came racing after her to get here so quickly. 

A part of her thrills that he'd followed her, that he hadn't disappeared for days and made her chase him down, or stayed invisible until the next time he needed something. But another part wonders if he’s here because he refuses to let her call any shots. He can disappear before she wakes up, leaving her alone with no warning for most of a day, but when she leaves, he tracks her down like a misbehaving pet who's jumped the fence and run away. 

"You should go," she says stiffly. 

The words seem to echo in her mind, but she can't place them until Rio's shoulders tighten for a split second before he shrugs it off. She realizes they're the same ones she used that afternoon after she'd invited him over to collect his cut, then threw him out, severing off everything between them abruptly and definitively.

Beth closes her eyes briefly and tries to swallow back the familiar shame that swamps her on the rare occasions she lets herself think about how horribly she'd treated him—not just by luring him back here without revealing her intentions, but by ending things so coldly. She remembers how open he'd looked, how unexpectedly happy, and how she hadn't anticipated that or the way it would make her feel. 

He huffs, and she wonders if he's reliving the same thing. He's barely been back to her house since then, she realizes, and when he has he’s stayed almost entirely in the kitchen. 

It catches her off-guard, the idea that Rio might have been avoiding this space. 

She tries to shrug off the guilt and sympathy the thought kindles, tries to refocus on the purity of her rage and hurt. He lied to her. 

"You should go," she says again, rougher this time. She tries to force down the lump in her throat even though her chest is tight to the point where adding any more pressure to it might cause her to burst. 

"Why's that?" he asks. 

The question’s quiet, and combined with the way he’s perched on the edge of her bed, hunched over like he’s trying to protect himself from a blow, he seems almost vulnerable in a way Beth’s never seen. But when he finally looks up at her, she sees his eyes are burning, a banked rage held back with control so complete, it's nearly elegant. 

She hates that he can somehow manage to keep himself so contained, even after a city-wide sprint to her house at three in the morning, when she feels like her world is falling apart.

"You know why," Beth says.

He only raises his eyebrows, pursing his lips, waiting for her to explain. 

"Mick called," she says, stalling a little. He keeps looking at her, so she thinks _what the hell._ She may have invaded his privacy, but he betrayed her trust. "I looked at your phone. I know what you've been doing."

"Ah," he says, and he doesn't even have the decency to be ashamed or surprised. Instead, he's almost resigned. As though this is the inevitable conclusion of the road they've been going down and not a situation he's created with his secrets and ultimatums. It infuriates her. 

"That's it? That's all you have to say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"How about ‘I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I was doing?’ How about ‘I'm sorry I _lied?’_ How about ‘I'm sorry I let you believe—’" 

She chokes on the last word and snaps her mouth shut. She doesn't want Rio to know how deep the betrayal cuts, that he has the power to wound her like that, to dismantle her belief in herself. Because he _shouldn't._ She's through giving _anyone_ that kind of power over her. 

"Let you believe _what_ , Elizabeth?" The question is loaded, as if he has his own baggage he brought to the table, and it's only fuel for her fire. What right does he have to be mad at her for anything right now?

"I thought the situation was _mine_ to handle," she says. "That I _had to_ if I ever wanted to be something."

He shrugs— _shrugs_ —like he's not seeing the issue.

"So what's all of that?" she asks, gesturing at him, assuming his phone's on him somewhere. 

"That's recon. That's what handling it looks like," Rio says, biting each word off. "Why, how does it look for you? What's your plan?"

He cocks his head on the last question; the sarcasm, the taunt, the gesture all push her over the edge.

"I was _figuring it out,_ " she cries, slamming her drink down on the dresser so hard a distant part of her is worried she might've cracked the glass. "You didn't give me a _chance—"_

"What do you think this _is?_ " He explodes up to his feet like his frustration and anger are so forceful he needs to move to contain it. "How are you _still_ not getting it? I give you nothing _but_ chances. This ain’t the kind of thing that waits for you to be ready, even—"

He bites off the end of his sentence, shoving his hands in his pockets, rocking his jaw as he swallows back whatever he was holding back.

"I haven’t made a move," he says instead.

"Will you?"

He doesn't answer for a long moment, and she can see his fists balled up, the peaks and valleys of his knuckles stretched through the fabric. 

"If you don't, I have to."

Beth inhales sharply, filling in the part he's not saying. "And you don't think I will."

He doesn't deny it, how could he? The answer's written all over him in the way he purses his lips and rolls a shoulder, the way he can't quite meet her eyes for a moment. Then, when he does, she recognizes a flicker of sadness amidst the anger, that odd mourning note she'd seen the other day but couldn't figure out; this time she recognizes it for what it is. 

Rio hadn't thought she'd be able to do it then, he doesn’t think she'll be able to do it now. And he knows that if she can't, if he has to do it for her, it's ultimately going to be the thing that breaks them. 

It's true, she realizes. Maybe he could find a way for them to work if she weren't in it, but _Beth_ would never be able to accept that. And under these circumstances? After he'd lied, to have him be _right_ when he thought she couldn't do it? That she wasn't _enough?_

It doesn't matter that the situation in question is cold-blooded murder, that a part of her desperately wants to put it on him, to let him get his hands dirty—hell, it's not like it would be the first time—while hers stay clean. She doesn't know if she'd ever be able to get past it, knowing what it would signify if he finished this for her.

Of course he sees that. He knows her, he _sees_ her. That's what makes this blow so devastating. 

Something warm and radiant—something that had been flickering since she'd gone through his messages, but still stubbornly stayed lit—gutters and dies inside her. 

Beth gropes blindly for her anger, wrapping it around herself like a shield, a shroud. 

"I need more _time—_ "

"Like hell you do," he spits, his own temper blazing. "You could have another week, and you'd be in the same place you're in now, tryin' to psych yourself up, sayin' you need to be _ready_ , playin' games—"

"You think—you think this is a _game_ to me?"

"Tryin' to tell me that ain't what all this is?"

"You think I'm just, what? Some—some bored housewife? You think this isn't _real_ to me? After everything I've been through, you think I don't know what's at stake?" 

Beth blinks, nearly choking on her disbelief that after everything she's—they've—when will it ever be enough? "I almost _died_. I _killed_ a man. I thought I killed _you_. I have known _exactly_ how real this is since that night in the loft."

He laughs, short and bitter. "That's what it all comes back to for you, yeah?"

"What—what's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, none of it means shit."

For a moment, all she can do is gape at him, her mouth silently opening and closing while she tries to catch her breath around the ice that stops her heart, freezes her lungs. She struggles to absorb the almost-casual way he’s dismissing everything between them.

"How _dare_ you? How can you say none of this means _shit?_ I am doing _everything_ you told me I had to. What's it going to take for you to treat me like I'm an equal part of this? Like I'm not some—some _thing_ you get to pick up and discard at will?"

"That's what you think I do?"

"What else am I supposed to think? You _lied!_ How am I supposed to trust—"

He laughs again, and it's an even darker sound somehow. "Oh, we talkin' 'bout trust now? You sure you want to bring that into it?"

"What—"

"'Coz, see, from where I'm sittin', I got a hell of a lot longer list of reasons not to trust you than you got for me."

" _What?_ That is—"

"You lie to me as easy as breathin'. You've snitched, you've robbed me, you told me you were fuckin' _pregnant,_ came after my fuckin' _kid—_ "

He breaks off on the last word, baring his teeth and pacing away. All Beth can do is stare, searching for words, all of the justifications she’d clung to scattering like dust, leaving her with no defense or denial. Then he spins back around and strides right up to her, his fists still straining against the pockets of his hoodie.

He’s close enough that she could lean into him if he let her, if she wanted to. Close enough that when his voice drops to something low and rough, more than a whisper but not by much, it still sounds like he’s yelling.

"I've done some shit, yeah, but at least I know who the fuck I am. You? You walk 'round like butter wouldn't fuckin' melt, like you still pretendin' bein' a good person's what you want to be, what you _can_ be. Actin' like you can just—"

He stops at that, jerking back at the force of his own words. 

"I can just what?"

He shakes his head, barely more than a twitch of his chin. Other than that small movement, he's holding himself so still, he's practically vibrating. There's a storm raging inside, and he's just barely keeping it locked down through sheer force of will.

"I can _what,_ Rio?" He visibly starts at his name. "Just _fucking say it!"_

"That you can fuckin' _leave!"_ The words are a tangled snarl of heat and fury and anguish exploding out of him, the impact nearly knocking Beth back a step. 

"You wanna talk about trust, yeah? The whole time you've been in this, you've had one foot out the door. How'm I supposed to trust you ain't gonna pile everything on my doorstep and bail the next time shit gets too deep?"

The words come like they've been torn out of him, raw and jagged, a furious torrent of bitter hurt. Beth's utterly blindsided. She feels her jaw drop, and she blinks, trying to catch hold of any one of her kaleidoscoping thoughts, but they're shifting and fragmenting, slipping in and out of reach.

"You have the fuckin' nerve to say _I_ left _you?_ Nah, darlin’, you're the one who's always leavin'. You quit _me._ Hell, you did it right here, left the money on the nightstand for services rendered, and kicked me out of your fuckin' life. You left me bleeding out on the fuckin' floor. If one of us don't have a reason to trust the other, it sure as shit ain't _you."_

He spits the last word, and it falls like a stone between them. His chest heaving like he's run a marathon. 

Beth's stunned to silence, struggling to wrap her head around everything—that the bedrock of his anger is the fear she'll leave, that it stretches so far back, she can't actually say it's unfounded, no matter how much she wants to. She _has_ left him, she _has_ pushed him away, and she can't say for certain that, even after everything, even with how she feels, she wouldn't do it again. 

In a way, it's the exact same fight they had that morning in Canada, about their roles in that horrible night—except now she sees this is bigger than that. It's not just about that night, and it's not about what came after or what came before. It's about the fundamental flaw in their foundation: she doesn't know if he'll ever be able to treat her like an equal, he doesn't know if he can trust her to stay. And if neither of them can bend, then they'll both be right.

Beth looks at Rio, and the distance between them feels like an endless, war-torn wasteland riddled with landmines. She doesn't have any idea how to even begin to cross it. 

He looks back, his fury ebbing, leaving the same sort of hopelessness she feels behind in its wake, and she knows she doesn't have to say anything; he recognizes the impasse they've arrived at just as much as she does.

"Where does that leave us?" Beth whispers, her lips numb.

Rio doesn't answer for a long moment, a thousand different things passing over his face too fast for her to read. "Your move, ma."

Then he steps forward, close enough that her chest brushes against his when she breathes. His fingertips ghost along her face, nudging her hair back and trailing down her face. Her eyes flutter shut, and she leans into the touch, so familiar, yet so strange and new. 

He hasn't touched her like this since...since the day she broke into his loft. He's come close, but it's never been exactly the same. And unlike those other times, this one feels honest, raw. He isn't manipulating her, he's doing it simply because he wants to, needs to. 

His breath ghosts across her cheekbone. "You need help, all you gotta do is ask."

By the time Beth forces herself to open her eyes, Rio's gone. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know, B, when we were talking about your playbook the other day, this isn’t what we meant,” Ruby interrupts. 
> 
> “I know,” Beth says, turning to check on the sauce. “But with Dean taking the kids on and off, it seemed like—”
> 
> “A good reason to put off everything else?” Ruby ruthlessly cuts her off. 
> 
> “I’m not putting anything off,” Beth says, tapping the spoon against the pot to knock off the excess. “I have a list.”
> 
> “Uh-huh, so how’s gang friend?” Annie blurts, and Beth freezes, her knuckles going white around the spoon. She can barely hear Ruby’s exasperated groan, and Annie’s responding _what?_ over the abrupt, hollow ringing sound that fills her head.
> 
> She doesn’t know if she’s ever noticed before how _loud_ the absence of something could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!! so sorry for the delay in getting this up, does it help to know I spent a bulk of the time plotting out 10, 11 and the epilogue that has become less epilogue and more final chapter but I have to keep calling it an epilogue because I refuse to add another chapter? 
> 
> ANYWAY, have I mentioned how much I love [nickmillerscaulk](https://nickmillerscaulk.tumblr.com/)? trick question, it is impossible to mention that enough because I love her a lot. she is an incredible editor and gets where I'm trying to take this story on a level that makes me legitimately wonder if she's actually psychic on a regular basis. I am desperately, disgustingly grateful to her for the time and energy she's put into making this fic amazing and legitimately don't know how to write without her input. another gigantic, sloppy thank you to [foxmagpie](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/) for patiently throwing scenarios at me until one clicked and I unraveled the entire (much better than my original idea) ending from there. I'd be lost without you guys, thank you so v v much for putting up with me having dramatic hysterics all over the place.

“I understand the carnival’s next weekend Asmita, that’s why I need you to let me know now if I can have a booth—”

“I don’t know Beth, I’d have to run it by Lauren—”

Unable to hold back her sigh, Beth holds the phone away from her ear for a second, letting Asmita ramble, knowing it’ll be a moment before any input’s needed from her. 

“—if a second fundraiser will take away from the gym, you know? And we can’t have that, the wiring’s so bad, it’s going to burn down any second—oh, I’m sorry, that was insensitive.”

“It’s fine,” Beth says, bright and cheerful. 

It _is_ fine, actually. If Asmita’s already thinking about the fire, that means Beth doesn’t have to remind her. It’s so much easier to maneuver these women into doing what she wants when they do half the work for her. “Of course I understand how serious the need for a new gym is. I was the one that leaned on the administration to do a building inspection in the first place, remember? Besides, if anything, don’t you think the connection would help? The reminder that tragedy can strike at any moment?”

“Oh, that’s true, I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

 _Of course, you haven’t. When’s the last time you had a thought that wasn’t spoonfed to you._ Beth bites down the tip of her tongue, the pain blossoming bright and keen, keeping the sharp words from spilling out.

“I know how hard it is to rearrange the booth plan at the last minute, but it’s certainly not _impossible,_ ” she says instead after the lull’s stretched out a beat too long and she hears Asmita start to fidget on the other end of the line. “I would know, I’ve been on the carnival planning committee for the last three years.” 

She pauses, allowing that to sink in before adding a layer of guilt to make Asmita that much more pliable. “I have to admit, I was a little surprised no one asked me this year...”

“Oh, well, I, um. We didn’t think...you’ve been so busy—”

Beth closes her eyes, the hand not holding the phone clenching around the edge of the countertop. She braces herself against the onslaught of everything she’s been busy with, letting the deluge wash over her, refusing to let anything linger, especially not...

_Dark eyes locked on hers, a calloused finger dragging lightly over the rolling crest of her cheekbone—_

“We didn’t want to pressure you, and Lauren—”

“You know,” Beth breaks in, cutting to the point before Asmita has a chance to babble on for another thirty minutes. She’s more than ready to play her hand and be done with this conversation. “We purchased print and digital ad slots for the Paper Porcupine that are due to run this week. I’d be happy to donate them to the carnival. It could really spike ticket sales.”

She waits, letting her move land, giving Asmita a moment to work through what a coup it would be if she could directly link a last-minute ticket bump to a decision she’d made.

“Detroit News or Freep?”

Beth smiles. She’s got her. “Both.”

“Well…” Asmita hesitates, her inability to make a choice on her own at war with her need to beat Lauren. Beth taps her fingers against the counter, impatient. It’s too easy to maneuver these women around, but _god_ does it have to take so long?

“We’ll make it work,” Asmita decides eventually, like Beth knew she would. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I left you high and dry in your time of need.”

Her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, and Beth can picture her settling in for a long gossip—she’s seen it often enough. “How’s everything going, anyway? We’ve all been wondering—”

“That’s wonderful news, Asmita. I’ll get the ad art updated immediately, look for it to start running Monday. Thank you!”

Beth hangs up on Asmita’s sputter with a roll of her eyes and tosses her phone on the counter. She pulls her to-do list towards her and draws a neat line through _PP booth space,_ three-quarters of the way down, with a satisfied hum. She grabs her phone again and fires off a text to Lucy— _how are those updated ads coming?_ —then switches over to her email and sends quick notes to her ad contacts at both papers, letting them know the artwork is incoming and apologizing for the last minute delivery.

Setting her phone down again, she turns to the stove and grabs her wooden spoon to sample the spaghetti sauce that’s been simmering for the last few hours, appreciating the seamless transition from one task to the other, like steps of a dance. Accomplish one, check on another, one foot in front of the other—no time to think about anything other than what needs to be done. 

She adds a pinch of salt to the pot and gives it a stir, mentally running through the items on the list she needs to tick off before Dean brings the kids back this evening. 

“Incoming!” Annie calls, staggering in the front door holding onto one end of a rolled-up runner carpet, Ruby bringing up the rear. “Ready for it?”

“Hold on.” Beth hurries over to the hall outside her bedroom and kicks out a rug pad she had propped against the freshly painted wall. 

She steps back, taking a look at the placement, squinting a little at the alignment. Off-center.

She bends down and tugs it a little towards her. Damn it, now it’s crooked.

“Honestly, I think Stan’s more messed up about the whole thing than I am,” Ruby says as she and Annie shuffle over, clearly continuing a conversation they’d been having outside. “We were going to grill this weekend, and the smell of the burning charcoal sent him over the edge.”

“Oooof, that’s rough.” Annie adjusts her grip on her end of the rug. “Any day now, sis.”

“One second.” 

“What are you going to do about it?” Annie asks.

“What _can_ I do about it? Wait it out, I guess. Stay away from fires.”

Beth skips down to the other end and tugs, but it sticks—obviously, that’s the whole point of it—and when she tugs a little harder, it goes too far. She slides back to the other end to adjust again and—

“Oh, my god. Beth!” Annie stomps her foot. “No one’s going to see the pad, save it for the rug.”

“Wait, just—” She tweaks it a hair back to the right. “Fine,” she exhales, stepping back into her bedroom doorway to give Annie room to shuffle down the hallway, unrolling the runner as she goes. “You’re going too far towards the office.”

Annie hisses but stops shuffling. Beth darts out of the doorway and grabs the sagging middle of the rug, trying to tug it into what she thinks is the middle of the hallway. “I think this is right.”

Annie and Ruby lower their ends, and Beth studies the positioning. “What do you guys think? Is it too close to the wall? Maybe I should get my tape measure.”

“It’s fine, B. If you move it too far from the wall, it won’t cover up as much of the paint stain.”

Beth stares at Ruby blankly for a moment, not following, and then it clicks: she’d used a dropped gallon of paint to explain the discolored floorboards outside the bedroom. She’s going to be better about telling them things, she _is,_ but explaining Bruno—it was too much for right now, especially when all she needed was some help covering the stain. She’d managed to repaint the whole hallway herself—and then the foyer, and den, and the office—and while she hasn’t started yet, she thinks the dining room will be next. But getting the floors redone before the kids came back was out of the question, even if she’d had the money to do it. Which reminds her—

“Do you think buttercups or ivy?” Beth asks Annie, glancing over her shoulder as she heads back to the kitchen and her to-do list.

“I have literally no idea what you could possibly be talking about,” Annie says, shooting a wide-eyed look at Ruby. The two of them cautiously follow Beth, like they’re trying to corral something dangerous and unpredictable.

“For Nancy’s thank you note,” Beth says, pen poised over the list, ready to add an item. 

“Who cares?” Annie says, hopping up onto a stool. “I went through Gregg, he’s still too afraid of you to ever say no to anything you need. I don’t even know if he told Nancy. Have you seen their house? It’s huge, and she redecorates every six months. They probably have a whole pile of rugs in the attic.”

“Ivy,” Beth decides, making a note. “I was watching a watercolor tutorial last night, and there’s this trick with salt that I want to—what?”

She doesn’t like how Ruby and Annie are looking at her, like they know something she doesn’t. Besides, everything is _fine_. 

Well, okay, not everything. Mia’s still on the loose and her kids are coming home tonight—Beth’s chest goes tight for a moment, but she breathes through it. She’s got a plan. Sort of. She’s working on it. 

And there isn’t...there isn’t anything else.

“How much sleep have you been getting, babe?” Ruby asks, sitting down next to Annie.

The gentle reproach in her voice grates along Beth’s admittedly frayed nerves. It’s not like she doesn’t know she needs to get some sleep, like she hasn’t been dabbing more and more concealer on the deepening bags under her eyes every morning. If she’s too wired at the end of every day to lie down, why waste the momentum? There’s so much to do. 

“Oh, that reminds me,” Beth comes back around the counter, ignoring the even more concerned look Ruby and Annie share as she realizes her response was not only not an answer, but a complete non-sequitur that probably wasn’t helping her case. 

She hustles over to her crafting table and grabs the two ring-bound books stacked on it, bringing them back over to the island and dropping them in front of Ruby and Annie. They land with a not-insignificant thud.

“I started making a handbook for Dean, and it occurred to me that I should probably make a back up for me, and then I ended up making extras for you guys too.”

“Holy shit, Beth.” Annie flips through the tabbed pages as best she can, the lamination making it hard to do. “There are encyclopedias less substantial than this.”

“Well, you know.” Beth squirms a little. She’s used to Annie’s scorn, especially directed at her passion for color-coding and organization, but there’s a layer of pity that doesn’t sit well with her right now. “There’s a lot to cover.”

Beth flicks a glance at Ruby, but she finds no reprieve. Ruby isn’t even looking at her book. Instead, she’s watching Beth, her blatant concern making a divot between her eyebrows. 

“There’s a table of contents,” Beth points out, not wanting to hear whatever Ruby’s building up to.

“I see that,” Annie says, disgust thick in her voice and expression, but there’s a little wonder in there too, which makes Beth feel slightly less prickly. 

“And look,” Beth says, reaching over to point. “I did the ring binding so that it would be easier to add and subtract from it, so—”

“You know, B, when we were talking about your playbook the other day, this isn’t what we meant,” Ruby interrupts. 

“I know,” Beth says, turning to check on the sauce. “But with Dean taking the kids on and off, it seemed like—”

“A good reason to put off everything else?” Ruby ruthlessly cuts her off. 

“I’m not putting anything off,” Beth says, tapping the spoon against the pot to knock off the excess. “I have a list.”

“Uh-huh, so how’s gang friend?” Annie blurts, and Beth freezes, her knuckles going white around the spoon. She can barely hear Ruby’s exasperated groan, and Annie’s responding _what?_ over the abrupt, hollow ringing sound that fills her head.

She doesn’t know if she’s ever noticed before how _loud_ the absence of something could be.

“He’s fine,” Beth says brightly, carefully placing the spoon on the spoon rest, making sure she’s got a solid—if not slightly puzzled—smile pasted across her face before she turns around.

“Yeah?” Annie folds her hands in front of her and cocks her head. “Talk to him recently?

Beth makes a noncommittal sound and grabs her phone, sending another text to Lucy. _Say something about how the PP raffle will be a real moneymaker. That’s cute, right? I think it’s cute. We should use it._

“I was only asking because I couldn’t help but notice you haven’t been downtown the last few days.”

Beth frowns, scrolling over to her settings. “You know, we can turn that off now—”

Annie surges up and grabs Beth’s phone before she can pull up the right menu, ignoring Beth’s outraged _hey!_

“I don’t know, Ruby and I were talking, and we kind of like having _some_ clue what you’re up to. Though between this,” she pauses and flicks the book, shaking out her hand at the impact, “and the totally normal, middle of the night redecorating _,_ I guess we don’t really need to track you to know something happened.”

“What do you want me to say?” Beth asks, fidgeting with the to-do list, rolling up the corner of the page, and letting go, watching it unroll. “You guys were right.”

Annie squints. “I like that you’re saying that, but I feel like it’s not for the right reasons.”

“What happened?” Ruby asks the question softly, but there’s an edge to it, and Beth can’t tell if it’s protective and ready to jump to her defense, wary and braced for a storm to follow, or if it’s something else entirely.

“Nothing, it was a bad idea.” She rolls the corner of the list up in as tight as she can, pressing down a little, and this time when she lets go, it stays rolled up. “Too much baggage.”

Beth’s proud of how steady her voice is, how easily she can talk about closing the door on...whatever that had been. A fever dream, maybe. It’s been four days, and already those hazy days after the fire feel like something she’d imagined, something that happened to someone else. Some kind of trauma response. Not anything real, anything that mattered. 

_Warm lips pressed impossibly soft to the delicate skin on the underside of her wrist—_

“So, next Saturday,” Beth says, scratching at the edge of the fresh gauze wrapped around her hand. “You guys will be there, right?”

“Ashfield’s annual Fourth of July carnival? Wouldn’t miss it,” Annie leans back, lacing her fingers behind her head, a fond smile spreading across her face. “Dean losing the Coney eating contest is _still_ one of my most treasured memories, and it’s been three years. I didn’t know it was possible to puke that much, like, the sheer _volume—”_

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to clean it up,” Beth says, interrupting before Annie can really dig into the memory. It inevitably ends in a reenactment, and she’s not in the mood for all the gagging. 

“And I meant being there to help. I talked to Asmita, and she’s making space for a Paper Porcupine booth. Between Lucy, Dorothy, and I, we have a small amount of inventory we can raffle off as, oh, I don’t know, mementos of the old store, and then we can do a fundraiser. I was thinking about maybe setting up a mini tabletop press. We could do on-the-spot typographic prints—that could be neat, right? Kind of old school? I think people would like to see how the letters are set. Oh! Little tutorials might spark some interest too. Or maybe we should do a block printer? We could do more with prints, but I don’t know if I can get blocks made in time—”

“What exactly are you fundraising for, B?” Ruby cuts her off again, that edge still in her tone, but sharper this time.

“To start printing again!” Beth smiles, leaning into the warm pride that lights her up whenever she runs through the steps of this part, _her_ part. “I’ve been working through it with Dorothy and, if we take the physical storefront out of the equation, it’ll be a lot easier and more economical to get back up and running. We can lean into the custom and specialty printing side of the legitimate business, maybe get into a little e-commerce retail. Then we use _that_ as a cover to start making money again and eventually buy her out entirely.”

“My, uh...” Her smile falters and she swallows, trying to clear the lump threatening to form in her throat before barreling on like nothing’s amiss. “My original funding idea looks like it might not work out, but it occurred to me that we could set up space at the carnival! I honestly forgot about it with—with everything, but I think it’s the perfect opportunity. Everyone loves Dorothy and the store, and you know Asmita doesn’t have it in her to say no to me, so I thought—

“So, you want to just...go back to printing like nothing’s happened?” Ruby interrupts. “That’s your plan?”

Beth frowns. The words aren’t the same but they have a familiar ring to them, resurfacing things from the other night she is _not_ thinking about. “I mean, yes, that’s ultimately—”

“What about the part where there’s a lunatic on the loose who tried to _kill us?”_

The words fall like a brick between them, and Beth flinches at the openly appalled dismay on Ruby’s face. 

“I realized we have an opportunity,” Beth begins, struggling to keep her voice level, to keep a tight grip on her emotions. She’s put so much effort into not letting herself feel anything the past few days, she doesn’t think she can start now without catastrophic results. 

“I know you’ve got a lot going on,” Ruby cuts in. “But this isn’t something you can ignore until it goes away, it’s like you’re not taking this seriously—”

_Playin’ games—_

“I’m not ignoring _anything,”_ Beth snaps, her back stiff and temper spiking, sending a fissure through her control. “I have a plan—”

“Oh, you do? Are you going to tell us about it ahead of time or is it going to be another ‘I did something’ kind of plan?” 

_“Excuse_ me?”

“Guys—”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” Beth barrels on, ignoring the placating hand Annie’s stretched between them. 

“You know _exactly_ what it means,” Ruby scoffs. “Don’t play dumb.” 

“Ruby, this isn’t what we _talked about,”_ Annie grits out through clenched teeth.

“Oh, the two of you talked about this?” Beth’s voice has gone shrill, and she hates it, hates that she can feel her control eroding, hates being ganged up on, hates that no one will give her a chance, a _moment_ to catch her breath and _explain._

“Of course we talked about this!” Ruby's staring at her, wide-eyed with disbelief. “Beth, you called at 5:30 in the morning to say you needed a rug because you repainted half your house in the middle of the night. What part of that sounds _sane?_ How were we _not_ going to talk about it?”

Ruby pauses, and Beth opens her mouth, ready to interject, to try and defend herself, but Ruby keeps going before she can get a word in.

“You act like you can do all these things, and they don’t affect anything else. I know compartmentalization is your _thing_ and I haven’t said anything because we’ve all gotta cope somehow, but it’s one thing to keep your PTA drama and your Dean drama and your carpool drama in neat, separate little boxes—”

“Oh god, here we go,” Annie mutters, dropping her head onto the island with a thud

“—but it doesn’t work like that when it’s life and _death!”_ Ruby’s voice breaks a little on the last word, and now she’s standing up, pushing up her sleeves like she needs the space and freedom of movement to really make her point. 

“I’ve _always_ let you tell me things at your own pace, I’ve _trusted_ you to know what is and isn’t anyone else’s business and to handle yours accordingly. But maybe that was a mistake. All I’m seeing is you burying your head in the sand, and that’s not okay because not only is it going to get _you_ killed, it might get me and Annie killed. God, Beth, it might get _your kids—_ hell, _all_ our kids—killed.”

For a moment, all Beth can do is stare, her mouth opening and closing as she tries to find the words, but her thoughts keep fracturing and scattering. “You think I don’t know that? Do you think that isn’t on my mind every second of every day? What do you want from me, Ruby? I am doing the _best I can.”_

 _“Are_ you? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re still trying to divide everything into tidy piles and pretend like they don’t touch each other, like everything’s going to stay where you put it.”

“That’s not—I don’t—” Beth sputters, looking around her kitchen, but for a second, all she can see is the ruin of it after Mia had come through, and that certainly doesn’t refute Ruby’s point about her worlds mixing.

Beth shakes her head, trying to clear away the memory, and Ruby lets out a furious noise, interpreting it as a denial.

“Wake _up,_ Beth!” Ruby slaps her hands down on the island for emphasis. “Your crime life and your real life are the _same thing!_ You need to either accept it or walk away. You can’t keep making choices like one doesn’t affect the other. And you _definitely_ owe it to Annie and me to tell us what’s going on, because if this is going to blow up in our faces _again,_ we deserve some say in it.”

“I have it under control!”

_“How?”_

“I’m going to—I’ve—” Beth stops, not knowing where to start, not knowing how to present everything she’s thinking in a way that won’t shock and horrify Ruby. She glances at Annie, a bubble of hope forming that her sister will come to her defense and give her a chance to collect herself so she can lay it all out.

“Oh no, don’t look at me,” Annie says without picking her head up off the counter. 

The bubble pops, leaving an empty void in its wake. 

“Sorry, Beth.” Now Annie sits up, eyeing Beth more seriously than she’s used to. “She’s got a point. Your track record when it comes to dealing with these things is not great to begin with, and it only gets worse when you filter out the times it didn’t end in disaster.”

The words land like a sucker punch straight to the gut. Beth looks down, trying to take a deep breath, but it keeps hitching, catching on nothing like there’s a sob lurking, waiting for a chance to break free. There’s a rising whine in her ears, an electric static cranking higher and higher, and everything around her seems impossibly far away. It’s not the words but the sentiment that’s a horrible, nauseating echo of the other night. 

“You don’t believe in me either,” she says, her voice dull. The betrayal, the sheer unfairness of it all swamps her, smothering the anger that had flared moments ago. 

“What does that—that’s not what this is _about,”_ Ruby says, throwing up her hands. “You’re not _listening._ All we—”

Beth’s phone lights up, letting out a loud buzz. For a split second, she feels her heart in her throat, just like she has every time a call has come in over the last few days. Only it sinks when she sees _Dt Shull._ She blinks, confused, the name rings a dim bell, but she can’t place it. It’s stored in her memory with the scents of smoke and antiseptic, and it clicks. It’s the arson investigator assigned to the Paper Porcupine fire.

“I have to take this.”

“Of course you do,” Ruby scoffs, grabbing her purse. “Call me when you get to ‘stop avoiding things’ on your to-do list.”

It’s so unfair—she’s about to talk to a detective, she isn’t avoiding anything—Beth almost hits ignore so they can hash this out, but the wound Ruby’s ripped open is a little too close to the one still fresh and festering that she doesn’t want to—can’t—let herself look at right now. 

“Hello?” she answers the phone, and Ruby sighs, disgusted but obviously unsurprised.

“Mrs. Boland!” A jovial voice booms out the other end, and a burst of adrenaline zips through Beth raising the hair on the back of her neck. She isn’t sure where it comes from. She barely remembers talking to the investigator the night of the fire, but she doesn’t recall him being particularly interested in her—not like Turner, who’d seemed attuned to her frequency from the very moment she met him. 

“Art Shull,” the voice continues. “We spoke at the hospital last week. I’ve been working with Dorothy—”

“I remember, Art, “ Beth says, cutting him off and watching Ruby walk out the front door. She ignores Annie’s disappointed frown, refusing to let herself feel anything at all. “What can I do for you?”

“I don’t suppose you’d be able to meet me down at the store? I have a few more questions I’m hoping you can answer.”

“I’m not sure what else I can tell you…” Beth keeps her tone light, rubbing her forehead and looking at her list, then at the sauce on the stove. 

“I know, I know,” Art chuckles. “It’s all pretty tedious. Gotta dot all the i’s, cross the t’s, you know how it is. We’ll make it quick.”

Beth sighs, catching Annie’s eye and pointing at the sauce. Annie nods.

“I can meet you now if that works?”

“Perfect! I’ll see you there.”

—————

The investigator’s already arrived when Beth pulls up in front of the store. He’s an unassuming man, slouched and nearly finished balding. He gives off an air of perpetual rumpledness, but not offensively so. Even though Beth vaguely remembers talking to him in the ER, between his demeanor and the fog of fear, trauma, and pain medication smeared over large parts of that night, she can’t recall anything specific. The individual pieces of him come together in a largely unmemorable picture, and her overall impression is about as non-threatening as it’s possible to be. 

But then, Beth knows better than anyone not to trust the picture a person presents to the world.

He’s on the phone standing just outside the area around the store cordoned off by caution tape, keeping an eye out for her. When she parks, he gives her a nod and a smile, holding up a hand to ask her to wait. 

Beth nods, taking a minute to study the Paper Porcupine, curling and uncurling her fingers around the steering wheel, trying to work out a tremor that’s abruptly taken up residence in them.

The door and windows are boarded up where the glass shattered, and oily trails of residue left over from the smoke rise from the framework, but other than that, the outside of the building’s unscathed. In her mind, it was a burnt-out hull, blackened and misshapen. Seeing bricks and mortar still standing feels fundamentally wrong in a way that brings that electric whine Beth’s been fighting down back to the forefront, knocking her further out of alignment with the world around her.

_Breathe in. Breathe out._

There’s a heavy, dull ache in Beth’s chest that doesn’t go away no matter what she does. Inhaling feels like fighting through quicksand.

She swallows hard, shifting in her seat, uncomfortable with the silence, the stillness in the car. She’s spent the last few days moving, moving, moving; adding items to her to-do list as they occur to her and throwing herself into each project with complete focus, only letting herself sleep when she’s too exhausted. When she stops, all of the things she’s trying not to feel start bleeding in—the fear, the hurt, the despondency all welling up and threatening to drown her.

Art disconnects the call, and Beth’s out of the van, walking towards him before he’s had a chance to put it back in his pocket.

The summer sunshine beats down on her and heat rises off the asphalt in waves. It’s cut by a soft breeze drifting towards her, carrying the faint chalky, bitter smell of smoke and burning things towards her. The world flashes red and gold and black, and her throat closes, her lungs struggling to inflate as the fire surges around her, and her hand’s throbbing, throbbing, throbbing to the beat of her heart.

_Breathe in. Breathe out._

Beth puts one foot in front of the other, not letting herself waver, her vision clearing as she steps up on the curb.

“Mrs. Boland,” Art says, extending a hand. “Nice to re-meet you.”

“You too.” Beth smiles, completing the handshake. “Forgive me, I know we talked the night of the fire, but I don’t remember much of it.”

She doesn’t think she said anything incriminating, but it never hurts to set the stage to walk things back in case she needs to.

“Fair enough!” He smiles sympathetically and Beth tenses, remembering Turner’s faux-empathy. “You were pretty out of it.”

It’s a reasonably accurate observation. Beth’s memory of that night mostly exists in fragments—the period between Mia’s arrival and....the hospital parking lot is an overwhelming blur of sensation interspersed with flashes of clarity.

_Flash._

_Clinging to Annie’s hand for dear life, to the point that the paramedics gave up trying to pry them apart and worked around them._

_Flash._

_Blessed numbness sweeping down to her fingertips, the blissful lack of throbbing agony the thing that finally let the sob trapped in her throat loose._

_Flash._

_Wrapping her arms around Ruby’s heaving shoulders as she buried her face in Beth’s neck and wept._

_Flash._

_A rumpled man in a suit asking what happened, Beth’s nerves strung tighter than piano wire, not sure of the right answer, only knowing there’s a trap hidden in the low, soothing tone._

_Flash._

_Moonlight glinting off a boxy shape, the world snapping fully into focus as her gaze finds..._

“I remember enough,” Beth says, voice even. 

“That’s great! Anything come back to you about the circumstances?” There was no directly perceptible change in Art’s genial tone or mild expression, but Beth’s suddenly left with the distinct impression of sharp teeth and jaws poised to snap shut.

She shakes her head, painting a rueful frown across her face. “I’m not sure how much there is to tell you. I was in the back room when the fire started.”

“Huh.” Art looks back to the building, scratching idly at his chin, then turns back to her. “And there was no one else in the store?”

“Just me, Annie, and Ruby in the back,” Beth chirps, letting her frown melt into a pleasant, slightly perplexed smile. “I’m sorry, I’m confused. Dorothy said the fire was probably caused by some faulty wiring because the building’s so old?”

A familiar tingle starts in her fingertips, her nervous system coming online, senses sharpening and cutting through the numb fog that’s shrouded her for days. Beth knows this overture, knows the game of cat and mouse it leads to. The buzz sweeping through her takes her back to that afternoon at the dealership, Turner pounding on the bathroom door, an idea sparking to life, a plan to beat him taking shape.

Suddenly she’s fighting to keep the benign smile in place, to keep it from going predatory around the edges as she remembers the look on Turner’s face when he realized she’d slipped through his fingers.

“Yeah, weirdest thing.” Art runs a hand over his head, disturbing the few strands of hair stretched across it. “You may not know this, Mrs. Boland—or maybe you do, crime shows these days run the gamut—but we can tell where fires start. And the thing about this one is there were multiple points of origin, but none of them were the walls.”

“What does that mean?” Beth widens her eyes. “How could it have started, then?”

“Well,” Art’s eyes flick over Beth’s shoulder, then back to her, and he leans in, his voice dropping like he’s telling her a secret. “We also found accelerant trails. Labs came back as gasoline.”

“Gasoline?” The word comes out breathless like she’s on the edge of her seat, and Beth’s aware that she’s probably laying it on a little thick, but she can’t find it in her to stop, it’s too much fun.

Truthfully, with everything else on her plate, she hadn’t given much thought to an investigation into the fire. That night in the hospital, she and the girls had the presence of mind to say nothing, just repeating _I don’t know_ over and over, increasingly confused and distressed. At the time, it hadn’t been that much of an act.

Dorothy had mentioned talking to an arson investigator in passing, but Beth had been so focused on her plans that she hadn’t paid it any mind. What was there to investigate? It’s not like the store had cameras.

_They ain’t got nothin’._

Beth feels her wide-eyed, innocent expression wobble just a touch as she ruthlessly shoves the memory down deep, but it doesn’t matter. Art’s looking over her shoulder again, then stepping back.

“I’ll let my colleague explain,” he says, gesturing behind Beth, who turns to see a woman striding across the parking lot towards them.

If Art’s inoffensively rumbled, this woman is downright disheveled. Beth can’t stop her nose from wrinkling as she takes in the ill-fitting suit, scuffed shoes, and tangled hair, but as the woman steps up next to them, she sees she has the same bright, unwavering focus in her eyes that Turner always had.

Beth straightens, smoothing her sweater and shoving her purse more firmly onto her shoulder. Her buzzing nerves crank up a notch, recognizing that her true opponent has arrived. 

“Phoebe Donnegan,” the woman says with a smile, reaching out to shake Beth’s hand. “FBI.”

“Beth Boland,” Beth says, her smile prim at the firm, no-nonsense grip entirely at odds with the woman’s blazer's ragged hem.

“Is it still?” Agent Donnegan asks, cocking her head curiously. “I wasn’t sure if you’d go back to Marks, what with the divorce and all.”

Art clears his throat, adjusting his tie. He seems put off by the rising tension, but Beth knows how this game is played now, she knows this is all part of the first overture in a good cop versus bad cop play. It irritates her that they think she’s so naive she’d fall for it.

“Wow.” She doesn’t bother stopping her smile from going pointy and fixed. “You’ve done your homework. We only filed a few days ago.”

“I know,” Donnegan smiles sympathetically. “My condolences. You’re going through a lot right now, huh?”

“Par for the course when you’re a mother of four,” Beth says with a shrug. “But this is definitely a little more exciting than usual. Art was saying something about gasoline?”

“To the point, I like it.” The agent’s congenial smile stays in place, but like Art moments ago, Beth’s left with the impression of something sharper coming into focus, and she rolls her shoulders back in response. “We’ve discovered multiple points of origin for the fire. It looks like someone, or more likely several someones, used the inventory as fuel and helped things along by pouring gas all over it.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting that Ruby, Annie, or I had anything to do with that.” Her brow creases, a hint of frosty outrage coating her tone—the precisely right amount expected of a suburban housewife accused of arson. 

She isn’t prepared, though, for Agent Donnegan to throw back her head and laugh. The loud, braying sound seems almost too big for the scrawny chest it bursts out of. Even Art looks slightly startled.

“God no,” she assures Beth. But the unexpected certainty in her opponent’s voice puts her on edge. “No, we’re pretty sure we know who started it.”

She pivots, pointing across the street. Beth follows her finger to a strip mall—a CVS, a Subway, a community bank, a Chinese takeout restaurant, and a UPS store. An unremarkable collection of businesses duplicated every two miles in every midwestern suburb. Her mind races, trying to figure out where the agent is going with this, how to stay a step ahead of it. 

“We pulled footage from the ATM.”

Beth’s stomach drops, but then, what would an ATM camera across the street tell them? She clicks through scenarios, excuses, explanations before it halts, and a cool, commanding sense of purpose settles over her. There’s no need to overcomplicate it. She had a customer, it’s a store.

“Any visitors you want to tell us about?” the agent asks, turning back to Beth.

She scrunches her face, frowning like she’s thinking it over. “No one really stands out, there was an after-hours order pick up, but that’s not unusual. We try to be as accommodating to people’s schedules as we can.”

“Oh yeah? Who was it?”

“Just a woman and some friends,” Beth shakes her head slowly like she's trying to remember and not finding anything noteworthy about them. “Bachelorette party invitations if I recall correctly.”

“You don’t remember anything else? A name for the order?”

“Take your time,” Art breaks in, shooting a look at the agent like he finds her interrogation distasteful. Beth smiles at him like she’s grateful, like she believes him.

“No, sorry, it was on the computer, but, well…” she trails off, her faint smile melting into an apologetic frown, tipping her head towards the burnt-out store. 

“No cloud storage, huh?”

“Oh god, no,” Beth laughs, high and light. “Dorothy’s wonderful, but honestly, the fact that we tracked orders on a computer at all is a major victory. If she had her way, we’d still be using handwritten ledgers.”

The agent laughs again. It’s an off-putting sound: deep and honking, kind of nasal. Beth has to stop herself from taking a step back, unsure what to make of that reaction. 

“So, what, they just picked up their order and left?” Agent Donnegan abruptly sobers, cutting off her mirth like a flipped switch, fixing her focus on Beth as she waits for an answer. 

“I assumed so,” Beth says, evenly, not giving an inch. “I didn’t actually see them leave, my sister spilled a pint of ink all over the work table, so I ran to the back to see what was still salvageable and trusted them to see themselves out.”

She pauses, widening her eyes again like she’s having an epiphany. “You don’t—you don’t think that _they_ set the fire, do you? But _why?”_

Donnegan grins like she finds Beth absolutely delightful, and Beth smiles back, letting the barest hint of teeth show. She’s pushing it, she knows she’s pushing it, but it’s been so long since she’s felt this particular flavor of electric, humming energy she can’t help it. 

_They ain’t got nothin’._

This time she’s ready for the voice and lets the memory wash over her without allowing anything to show on her face. This time it feels more like a comfort, an encouragement.

“Well, that’s the funny thing,” Donnegan says. “Your last customer was a pretty notorious gang banger, formerly from Detroit but currently operating out of Canada, so it struck us as pretty odd to see her visiting a stationery store in the suburbs.”

She throws it down like a gauntlet, but any nerves are long gone, and Beth’s ready for her.

“Wow,” she says again, packing as much wonder and disbelief into the word as she possibly can. “That’s crazy, I had no idea.”

“Really?” The agent tilts her head, wide-eyed and guileless. “Because she had some pretty close ties to a former fling of yours.”

Beth sees Art shift, shoving his hands into his pockets, out of the corner of her eye, but doesn’t let her attention flicker from Agent Donnegan, who’s watching her just as intently. 

“I’m sorry, I’m not following.”

“I’ve been reading through James Turner’s case files? He seemed to think you had some pretty close ties to a Detroit gang.”

“Well, you’ve certainly done your homework!” Beth laughs a little like the agent’s said something ridiculous, but she’s too polite to point it out. “The thing about Agent Turner, though, is he thought a lot of things, but never seemed to have anything concrete to back it up.”

“No?” The agent frowns like now she’s the confused one. “He had a statement from _you_ admitting to an affair with the leader of the gang.”

Beth smiles a small, icy smile, the one she pulls out whenever Lauren says something offensive in a PTA meeting and expects everyone to agree with her. “I think you’ll find if you read that report carefully, it was a one-time thing, and any connection to a gang is purely coincidence.” 

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she lets the smile spread and heat, lets all of her teeth show. “Unless you _do_ have something concrete about this specific situation you’d like to talk about, I have a busy day ahead of me.”

Art blinks at the sudden change in Beth’s demeanor, but Donnegan beams back, wide and friendly. “Nothing right now, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.”

She steps off the curb towards the sedan parked on the other side of the lot from Beth’s van. Art follows, nodding goodbye, his genial mask long gone, replaced with something more thoughtful and considering. Beth doesn’t know if it’s because his sympathy was sincere or if it’s because he’s now rethinking his whole approach. Either way, it doesn’t matter, it felt good to let her mask drop.

“Oh, and agents?” Beth calls after them once they’re nearly to their car, suddenly inspired. She smiles her bright and benign PTA smile, her voice sweet as sugar. “The Ashfield school district’s having our annual Fourth of July carnival fundraiser next weekend. You should come by.”

Art tips his head in wary acknowledgment and slides into the driver’s seat. Donnegan turns back around with an easy grin, leaning against the passenger door for a moment and looking Beth up and down.

“Thanks for the invite, Mrs. Boland.” She raises her voice as she opens the door and ducks inside. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Beth exhales heavily as they pull away and watches them drive off, staring off into the distance long after their car’s no longer visible.

Eventually, she takes a deep breath and turns back to the store’s facade, studying the building in front of her. When Art called requesting her presence, she’d agreed so readily because she hadn’t wanted to stay in her house. Not when Ruby’s anger was still so fresh, so palpable, and Beth could practically see it clouding in the corners of the room. But she left so fast, she hadn’t given herself a chance to think about what it would be like to come back here. 

Steady and braced, now accustomed to the occasional whiff of smoke still lingering in the air, she sees it’s just a building. If anything, it’s almost disappointing—too small, too mundane, too unassuming to have housed the sheer volume of the trauma she’d experienced inside it. The cheerful pink awnings over the windows are ruined, marred beyond saving by smoke and ash. But the sign above the door is relatively unscathed, and Beth wonders if she should try to salvage it and hang it up in the new space, wherever that ends up being. It would definitely make a statement at the carnival, especially if she left it slightly singed around the edges. 

She pulls out her phone, making a note to see if she can get it taken down and if there would be space at her booth for it. She sends a quick text to Asmita telling her it should go without saying that she’s expecting a corner booth and shoves her phone back into her pocket even though she sees the typing bubbles pop up immediately. 

Leftover adrenaline’s still sparking along her limbs, making her restless. Turning, she strides towards the back of the building, the movement an outlet to mitigate the unspent energy making her skin tingle and twitch. Not from fear, not from the memory of the fire, not from the unexpected interrogation—it’s nothing like the first time Turner showed up at her door, sending her into a panicked spiral, leaving her ready to give up and back off.

Instead, there’s a bubbling, effervescent feeling rising in her. Beth recognizes it as that heady combination of satisfaction and anticipation she used to get from matching wits with R...well, Turner, for one—towards the end at least. It’s the rush of having a worthy opponent to outmaneuver and beat. 

She missed this—this business—she realizes. 

It’s more than feeling really, really good about being good at something, it’s the exhilaration that comes from triumph, made all the sweeter by the illicit thrill of knowing she’s getting away with something she shouldn’t. It’s claiming the forbidden for herself, the intoxicating kick of not denying herself something she wants though she knows she’s supposed to. 

The thought stops her up short. Beth has always told herself she does what she does out of necessity, to save and provide for her family, to help Ruby and Annie do the same for theirs. That need is still there—god knows they’re nowhere near out of the woods yet—but she can’t remember the last time that was the thing that spurred her to make a move. 

It’s more than being good at it, more than the thrill of something forbidden and selfish. It’s about _winning._ It’s the power and freedom and...she loves it.

The epiphany feels so glaring, so obvious—there’s no reason it should seem like the world’s rewriting around her.

But there’s a hollow note to it, an emptiness it takes her a beat to realize is the lack of someone to share the victory with. She could call Ruby and Annie—she _should_ call them, they need to know the FBI’s involved again—but they’ll jump straight to fear, panicking about what moves to make next. They won’t savor the moment or appreciate the game that’s beginning. 

_It’s lonely at the top._

Beth takes a deep breath, the ache in her chest more acute than it’s been in the dead of night. 

The view that greets her when she gets to the back of the building is the same as the front: boarded-up windows and doors, billowing inky trails up the brick above them and...nothing.

There’s no marker on the pavement where Ruby and Annie had dragged Beth out, no evidence of how Annie screamed and sobbed, beating on Beth’s chest, no sign of how the three of them clung to each other as the flashing lights and sirens drew closer. 

Logically Beth knew there wouldn’t be—the deepest wounds are always the unseen ones—but it still feels wrong, lacking. That forlorn feeling intensifies, an aching void inside her serving as an inescapable reminder of what she’s lost, what she’s missing. 

She turns, scanning the far edge of the parking lot, looking for the spot that would line up the video on… the video she’d watched. 

There aren’t a lot of—well, any, really—places to hide. The parking lot behind the Paper Porcupine bleeds into more parking for another shopping strip set back from the street, the endless painted slots broken up by a handful of scrawny trees valiantly clinging to their grass islands. Mia’s only options to take that video would’ve been standing out in the open or sitting in a car parked in one of the spaces. Either one would have left her considerably exposed—a bold choice that speaks to a flair for drama and disregard for caution, as have the few interactions Beth has had with her so far. It was a weakness Beth was counting on, a hinge for the plan that’s been taking shape in the back of her mind over the past few days. 

Remembering the video, Beth’s hands curl into fists, her nails digging into her palms. The sharp pain keeps her grounded in the moment, keeps her from falling back into her memories of that night, of what came after. Dwelling on all of the things she’s trying not to let herself think or feel—the things that are over and done with—will only distract her from moving forward. 

But it’s not enough. Standing back here, all she can hear is Annie’s crying over the phone speakers, all she can see is Ruby’s terrified face when she realized Beth wasn’t following her out the window, all she can feel is that horrible, sinking hopelessness when she thought she wasn’t going to make it out.

Beth clenches her fists, burrowing her nails deeper.

_You want to survive this? You want your kids back? You gotta make sure people know crossin’ you is dangerous._

Contrary to what R—what either of them—may think, Beth isn’t truly so naive to think she can do this work and keep her hands clean, she knows what this choice means. It’s Mia and Bruno and a gun in her hand, the echo of a shot in her ears, it’s bodies falling and blood splattering. It’s knowing that’s an inescapable part of the direction she’s pointing herself in, the dark side of the goal she’s set her sight on.

It isn’t that she’s avoiding her problems, that she’s refusing to get down in the dirt, that she wants to keep her worlds separate—she’s tried and failed to do that enough times over the past few years to know it’s a losing battle. The part she can’t square, the nuance neither of them seemed to catch, is how to go about letting the compartments of her life bleed together. 

How can Beth want this life, when she knows what all it entails? What terrible things she has to become okay with? 

The summer sun beats down, and sweat beads at Beth’s hairline. She can practically feel her skin going pink. After casting one last gaze over the parking lot, over the back of the burnt-out shell of the store, she lets go, shaking out her cramping hands and turning on her heel. 

Beth rounds the corner to the front of the store and nearly trips off the curb when she sees the familiar figure leaned up against the front of her van, his bald head gleaming in the afternoon light as he flicks through his phone.

Relief and disappointment briefly vie for dominance—Mick’s not who she’s been secretly hoping would pop up with no warning—before all of the things she’s been forcibly holding back crash over her at once.

First, and easiest, there’s the anger, the disbelief that Rio had gone behind her back, that he’d pretended to step back. Then comes the bitter hurt she feels all the way down to her toes: that he hadn’t truly thought Beth was capable of cleaning up her own mess. She thinks of the night in her bedroom, and with it, the despair and regret for the part she’d played in corroding the potential for something good between them. How thoroughly she destroyed it before she even knew it was there, how precious it was. 

Beth blinks furiously, the corners of her eyes prickling, and swallows once, twice, three times before she can shut it all away again. She thought she’d done a good job wiping her expression clean, but she obviously left something behind because Mick looks up as she approaches and sighs heavily, his shoulders rising and falling so dramatically she can practically hear it, even though she’s still halfway across the lot.

“What do you want?” she asks as she stalks up to the van, glancing across the street to assess if the ATM camera could catch them, but she’s pretty sure her van blocks the angle. Mick blinks at her, unimpressed.

“Got a delivery,” he says, reaching behind him and grabbing the paper bag wedged between his hip and the hood of the van. 

He holds it out to her, a nondescript crumpled thing from a local fast-food chain complete with grease dotting spots along the bottom, but Beth can tell from how it sags that there’s something heavier than any burger could be inside. 

Awash in a sense of deja vu, she takes it from him with suddenly nerveless fingers and looks inside, not at all surprised to find a dull black pistol, a full clip, and a spare clinking against it as she shifts the bag. 

“Boss thought you’d need it.”

Beth freezes for a moment while she processes the words, relief rushing through her and leaving her almost weightless, ready to float away. 

She doesn’t know if this is an apology, an olive branch, or even a threat—probably some combination of all three—but the sight of it has her feeling like she can breathe for the first time in days.

Then, mortification starts to creep in. For all the time Beth’s spent going round and round over how she could take care of the Mia situation, she’d missed such a basic step—what was she going to do, carry around Dean’s shotgun?—and of course, he knew it. 

The feeling only deepens when she remembers Mick’s there, watching her, surely taking notes to bring right back to his boss.

She crumples the bag back up, nodding once, sharply, like she’d been expecting this. “Thank you.”

Mick snorts, seeing right through her, and pushes up off the van.

“Anything else?” she asks, her head held high, refusing to reveal the part of her that’s pathetically, desperately hoping for more.

“He said to tell you you still owe him fifty of those hundred G’s.”

For a moment, all she can do is blink, completely bewildered as to what Rio could be referring to, and then she remembers. Her life. They’d made a bargain that she could buy back her life that awful night in Rio’s bar. It felt like a century ago and she hadn’t thought about it in weeks. 

But one sentence from Mick is all it takes to bring it back and suddenly it feels like yesterday. Sitting next to Rio that night, Beth wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so tired in her life—so tired, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to lie to him for a second longer, couldn’t spend another moment wondering when he was going to find out. He’d been right, she thought at the time, dragging out the inevitable was _so_ much worse. 

She laughs, short and bitter, the bright euphoria from barely a moment ago leaching away, leaving a bone-weary sadness so deep it aches. Isn’t it amazing how it can feel like they’ve come so far without actually going anywhere at all? Of course he’s holding her to that desperate bargain, it’s his money. 

“He knows I’m out of commission for the moment, right?” she asks, her voice like lead. “At my current rate of production, it’ll take me forever to come up with that kind of money.”

Mick nods, sighing a little, looking more obviously pained than Beth’s ever seen him. “He also said if you came back with something like that, to tell you that’s kind of the point.”

The words strike a chord, and it takes Beth a moment to place them. When she does—remembering that day she broke into his loft—she doesn’t know how to take it. At the time, she couldn’t believe the casually cruel audacity of Rio telling her he’d never let her be free, but now she wonders if it’s more than that, if it’s a way of saying they’ll always be connected. 

It’s that last part that has her breath catching, her heart skipping a beat. Something warm and bright rekindles in her chest. 

And then she gets mad. 

How _dare_ he use keeping her on the hook through some bullshit debt as a means to continue their relationship. How _dare_ he send someone else to tell her. If he thought they could keep going the way they had been, all games and half-truths and misdirects, he was going to find out how wrong he was. She was done with that—done with assumptions and hedged bets and settling for less. 

She knows what she wants. Now all that’s left is to go get it.

Mick takes a step back, reminding her he’s there.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling sweetly and stepping around him towards the driver’s side door. “Message received. I have to go now, my kids will be home soon.”

“Okay,” Mick says, nodding slowly, warily. “See you around, Mrs. Boland.”

“You will.” She turns back, and he looks downright alarmed. She wonders how sweet her smile really is and how much she’s just baring her teeth. “Oh, and it’s Ms. Marks now, I think.” 

—————

“I thought you hated a pop-by,” Ruby says when she answers the door late that night to find Beth fidgeting on her front porch. 

“I’m sorry,” Beth blurts. She's already off-balance from the uncomfortable novelty of knocking on Ruby’s door when she isn’t sure she’ll be welcome and finds herself unable to hold the words back a second longer once she sees Ruby's face, wary, still mad, but also slightly amused.

Ruby sighs. “Hold on.”

She shuts the door in Beth’s face, and that’s, okay, definitely still mad. Which she deserves. 

Or maybe it’s something else. Beth hears the rumbling rise and fall of Stan’s voice and Ruby’s answer clearly at odds, but too muffled to make out anything specific.

_I don’t want her bringing that to our house._

Beth flinches at the memory. Maybe she should’ve called.

Then Ruby’s back, hooking an elbow around the door to pull it open. She steps out, her arms laden with loosely knit blankets—it may be full summer, but some things are tradition—a bottle of bourbon tucked under her arm, and two tumblers clinking in one hand. 

Beth darts forward, a hand outstretched and stops, hesitant.

Ruby rolls her eyes. “Oh my _god,_ you can help me _carry stuff.”_

She grabs the glasses and the bottle while Ruby closes the door behind her. Settling on the front step, Beth pours a drink for each of them and trades one of the glasses for the blanket Ruby holds out to her. 

Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders and looking out across the yard, Beth sighs a little. The streetlights have come on, and fireflies flicker and dance in the deepening night. She can hear the _shkah shkah shkah_ of a neighbor’s sprinkler, and a screen door whine and slam from a house nearby. 

It’s all so ordinary. It could be any one of a thousand other summer nights she’s sat in this very spot with Ruby, figuring out the secrets of the universe—if not, at least figuring out their lives within it—or saying nothing at all, just enjoying each other’s company. 

Suddenly there’s a lump in her throat. She can’t imagine a version of her life where she doesn’t have this, doesn’t have the woman sitting beside her, sipping her drink and letting out a contented little noise. The friendship and familiarity of the moment are more of a security blanket than anything Beth could ever make.

“How’d it go with Dean and the kids?” Ruby asks.

“Good,” Beth answers, grateful Ruby’s starting with the easy stuff, giving them both a chance to ease into the conversation they need to have. “They were excited to be back. They’ve definitely figured out something is going on, but I think they’re putting it down to divorce-related weirdness. A vacation at grandma’s was a good distraction.”

Ruby hums, nodding. “That’s good.”

In the loaded silence that falls between them, Beth can hear a symphony of crickets chirping. The warm, humid air condensates on the back of her neck. 

“Annie stayed for dinner?”

“Yeah.” Beth nods, wondering if Ruby feels the same desperate need to fill the silence without knowing exactly how. “She’s still there, she agreed to stay over while I…”

She trails off, not sure how to end the sentence, but Ruby hums again, following the thought.

“I’m sorry,” Beth says again, deliberate this time. “You were right—you _are_ right.”

Ruby’s eyebrows shoot up at the last part, and Beth nearly rolls her eyes. She’s not that bad, she can admit when she’s wrong. Sometimes.

“I’ve dragged you guys into way more than you signed up for, and I’ve been keeping secrets when I shouldn’t, when it’s about things that affect you too. I haven’t let you make your own choices, and I’ve been a really, really bad friend.”

It all comes pouring out of Beth in a rush, and when she’s done, she stops, darting a glance at Ruby to see how she’s taking it. 

“You’re not—” She breaks off, shaking her head a little. “I mean, yes, thank you. You have to tell us this stuff, B. I know you try to sanitize and downplay everything to…I don’t know, make it seem more like you have it under control, or not scare us or something. But you have to stop, okay? We deserve to know what we’re getting into, what _you’re_ getting into. If for no other reason, so we can decide for ourselves how far we’ll go, or tell you you’re being stupid or what _ever.”_

Beth nods, swallowing hard. “I just...I don’t want you to look at me like I’m a bad person.”

She pauses and takes a gulp of her drink to fortify herself before forcing the rest out. “I’m not—I’m not going to stop. I—I want this, but I don’t know how to...I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t my friend.”

Her voice breaks on the last word, and she winces.

“Oh, _Beth.”_ Ruby doesn’t hesitate, turning and holding out her arms, wrapping them around Beth when she scoots over. “I will _always_ be your friend. Even if you hit my limit, we were ride or die before we ever robbed that damn store, we’ll be ride or die long after this. That’s why it’s _or die.”_

Beth snuffles a small laugh into Ruby’s shoulder at the _you idiot_ implied at the end of her sentence. 

They sit together for a moment, not saying anything. Beth hears the faint sound of the TV turning on inside the house as Ruby sniffles a little.

“You know there are lines I’m not gonna cross, right?” Ruby says after a minute, her voice thick. “I’m with you, I’m in it—”

She breaks off with a bitter laugh. “Hell, I have to be in it if I want to keep Sara on her meds, but you’re—I mean, you’re talking about murder. I’m never going to be okay with that. And beyond that, there’s some stuff...it’d go down differently for me babe, you know that.”

“You know I’d never...” Beth trails off, not sure how to say it. “I will _always_ protect you.”

Ruby smiles but there’s an extra dimension to it Beth knows she’ll never understand. “There’s some stuff you can’t protect me from.”

The cricket song rises and falls, a gentle summer lullaby.

“So, where does that leave us?” Beth asks, small and barely audible.

“Same place we’ve been, just with you actually telling me everything,” Ruby answers, tightening her arm around Beth’s shoulders when she shifts, an instinctive recoil. “It’s like they used to tell us in health class, B, you wanna do it, you gotta be able to talk about it— _all_ of it.”

Beth’s laugh is a little bit stronger this time, and she exhales, releasing a knot of tension she’s been carrying around in her chest since that morning. She doesn’t know how well that’s going to work, but she can at least try. 

“Hate you.”

Ruby snorts. “Hate your face.”

Beth readjusts her head on Ruby’s shoulder, looking back out at the yard. She remembers sitting in this same spot nearly 12 years ago, in almost this exact position—except then, it was Ruby’s head on her shoulder, watching Sara toddle around the yard, taking some of her first steps while Stan hovered anxiously in case she wobbled. 

“Stan’s never going to forgive me, is he?” 

She feels Ruby’s chest rise and fall in a heavy sigh more than she hears it. “Honestly, I don’t know. It’ll take a while.”

Beth nods, blinking back a tear. She’s more than earned that.

“Speaking of—” Ruby starts slowly and stops. “You know what, Annie’s right, I don’t know what we’re calling him. But are you ready to talk about whatever’s going on with you two yet?”

Abruptly itchy, Beth shoves up, reaching for her abandoned drink, and Ruby laughs. “Oh ho _ho,_ it’s like that, huh?”

“No, well, yes. I don’t know.” Beth huffs out a frustrated breath, not sure where to start. “I guess I’m—am I doing the same thing I did with Dean?”

“I am not following at all.”

“We...we fought.”

Ruby frowns, still confused. “You and Dean?”

“No, me and...me and Rio.” Beth fumbles with it, the two of them in a sentence as a unit, she can feel that telltale tingle that signifies her blush creeping up over her cheekbones.

“Yeah, B, we kind of figured that out,” Ruby says, rolling her eyes. Her small smile is fond and amused and more than a little exasperated. 

“I got suspicious. He’d been on his phone a lot and wouldn’t tell me what it was about—”

 _“No!”_ Ruby breaks in, and it’s the sarcasm, not the interruption, that has Beth raising an eyebrow at her. “Look, you know the man better than I do, but if this is actually something you want to make a go of, you’re probably going to have to get used to the idea that he’s never going to be an open book. Hell, neither are you.”

Beth nods, acknowledging her point. “I don’t even know what I was thinking really, I don’t think it was about that, or it was, but mostly it was just...everything felt too good to be true—impossibly good, like it couldn’t be real and there had to be something underneath it. And there was, he was _lying—”_

She stops, the taste of the memory still bitter—though, maybe not as bitter as before Mick’s visit. 

“He’d been working with Mick to track down Mia behind my back,” she finishes, waiting for Ruby’s disbelief and indignation on Beth’s behalf, freely given like it’s been so many times before. When it doesn’t come, she looks over, confused.

“Beth, if you're waiting for me to get mad about someone doing _anything_ that leads to you not _murdering someone,_ you’re going to be waiting for a long time,” Ruby says, dry as the desert.

“It’s not that, it’s—he didn’t think I could do it.” Beth swallows hard, trying to breathe around the sharp pain in her chest.

“I gotta say, I’m still not seeing how that’s a bad thing,” Ruby says eventually, her voice soft and hesitant. “Do you _want_ to be the kind of person that’s capable of murder?”

Beth sighs. “I want to be the kind of person that’s capable of _anything._ Did I ever tell you what Dean said to me when I first tried to get involved with the dealership last year?”

Ruby shakes her head.

“That we should both stick to what we were good at and that I was good at making _sandwiches.”_

Ruby stares at her for a beat, eyebrows halfway to her hairline, then abruptly looks away, pursing her lips and taking a sip of her drink. “You’re already divorcing the man, so I’m not gonna pile on.”

Beth snickers, soothed by Ruby’s disdain, and then sobers, trying to make her way to a point that’s only revealing itself to her as she goes.

“I let Dean run our lives for _years._ I never asked questions; I never tried to get involved. I never tried to steer the ship. Not only did it turn out that he was lying to me, but he nearly steered us right into the rocks, and when I tried to step in and right us myself, it was...that was the thing that destroyed us, Ruby. What if...what if this is a different version of the same thing? I...”

She takes a deep breath. “I _want_ …Rio. I want to figure out how to be with him. And I don’t—I’ve never been good at asking for what _I_ want. Between Annie and Dean and the kids, there’s never really been room for that, you know? There hasn’t even been enough room to figure out what it even _is_ that I want, and now that I’m doing that—”

Beth breaks off, blushing a little at the admission, fighting back the tiny voice that’s still trying to tell her what she wants is not important, doesn’t matter.

“I can’t go back. I can’t keep making myself be okay with things that I’m not, I can’t keep wanting and settling for less. I realized Dean might have been the one to cheat—well, _first—_ but I broke us too. I did it every time I didn’t tell him what I wanted because I was afraid he couldn’t give it to me. And then when I finally _did_ , he couldn’t handle it. He didn’t know how to handle a version of me that wanted something for herself. We might have been broken long before that, but that was the thing that shattered us and I can’t…”

“What if that happens again?” She finishes on a whisper, staring out at the front yard and the street beyond it, blinking furiously and feeling the full weight of her failed marriage, the wreck and ruin of her long-ago hopes and dreams settling on her shoulders.

Ruby’s silent for a long time, long enough that Beth looks over at her, sees her scowling and frowns a question back at her.

“I’m trying to figure out where to start with that mess,” Ruby answers. “First off, you did _not_ single-handedly destroy your marriage, Beth. Yeah, okay, you could’ve done some things differently or learned to communicate better, but that’s what _therapy_ is for. And even then, it’s not all on you. You did not make that man lie to you and stick his dick where it didn’t belong—for _years,_ I might add—all while running his business into the ground…again, over and over, because he doesn’t have two brain cells to run together. He’s trash, and he’s _always_ been trash, and he has _never_ deserved you. My _god_ , it feels good to finally say that.”

“I got him shot—” 

“Oh, did I miss something? Were you the one holding the gun?” 

Ruby pauses for a moment and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t entirely wrap my head around the fact that we’re talking about you getting romantically involved with the guy who shot your husband because you tried to put him in prison and that that’s like, _old_ news.”

Beth laughs again, but this time it’s a full, genuine sound that bursts from her. “It’s crazy, right?”

“Completely batshit, babe,” Ruby says, giggling along with her before it falls away, and she turns to face Beth head-on, her face serious. “But you’ve got another thread running in there. Whether or not ga— _Rio—”_

She stutters over the name, and Beth swallows hard, hearing the faint edge in it that Ruby can’t entirely hide, but she appreciates the effort.

“—cares enough about you to meet you halfway, right?”

Beth jerks her chin in some approximation of a nod, feeling horribly exposed—not just by the conversation and admitting her fears and shame aloud, but by the nearly unbearable vulnerability of needing something from someone else and not knowing if they have it in them to give it to her. It’s a leap of faith and those have never really worked out for her before.

“Right.” Ruby nods back, a much firmer, decisive gesture like she’s shoring up Beth’s lack of certainty with her own. “I can only go off of what I’ve seen, but I already told you that the biggest tell is how you should be dead. For someone who loves preaching about rotten eggs—and that is _not_ how that expression goes, by the way—you have to admit you’ve proven you’re his more times than one, and you’re still here.”

“Okay, but—”

Ruby waves her off. “I know, I know. You make him money, and he loves his money. B, you cannot possibly believe you’re the only person that can do that for him. You’re smarter than that.”

Beth flushes at the disbelief and scorn packed into the look Ruby levels at her. 

“But okay, fine,” Ruby continues, holding up a hand with fingers extended, ready to count off. “Let’s look at the past few weeks. He put a $100K price tag on your life and by extension his—”

“Yeah, but for all he knew that might as well have been a million—”

“Don’t interrupt, it’s still half of what he charged us to retrieve a dead body, and oh my _god,_ I cannot with the circumstances of this relationship but okay, moving on.” She holds up another finger. “He is apparently cool with you setting up your own printing operation in the middle of his turf…”

She trails off, raising an eyebrow in a silent question and Beth nods, confirming her assumption.

“Technically he owed me, and I—”

“Bitch, it is my turn to talk. And besides, he _owed_ you _?_ Do you really think he couldn’t have found a loophole or flat out refused to honor an IOU? What were you going to do if he had? Be mad?”

“It was sort of a life or death IOU,” Beth mutters, picking at the hem of the blanket on her shoulders. The stitching’s starting to unravel, she should take it home and fix it for Ruby.

“The point is, since when has he played fair? What was in it for him aside from making _you_ happy? And that’s not even getting into this whole messed up situation with Mia where, I would point out, he may have been doing some stuff behind your back, but he’s still waiting for you. He’s giving you time to get your feet underneath you and let me tell you, B, if you haven’t figured it out yet, that’s not nothing in this line of business.” 

“I don’t know how I would know if he _had_ made a move against Mia,” Beth grumbles, but there’s no heat in it. For as much as Rio plays with her, she doesn’t actually think he’d send Mick to her with a gun if there wasn’t a chance or a reason for her to use it.

“Now you’re being stubborn,” Ruby shoots back. “I’m just saying, I don’t know what you guys have talked about, I don’t know what it’s like when it’s just the two of you, but from the outside it sure as hell looks like he’s already trying to meet you halfway—which is _huge_ considering you, you know, _shot him_ . What you have to decide is if this is the best he can do, if this is as far as he can go, is it enough for _you?”_

The question lands in Beth’s mind like a meteor, the impact rearranging the continents she’s mapped her meridians across. She’s spent so much time wondering whether or not she could step up, she never thought to ask herself if Rio’s enough for _her_. 

“Rio isn’t Dean,” Ruby says, her voice soft now as she watches Beth absorb her point. “He’s not threatened by you taking charge. Hell, he very obviously gets off on it. Sure, he’s not going to roll over and let you go unchallenged, but I’d argue _you_ get off on that right back.”

Beth can _feel_ herself flush to the roots of her hair.

“But he’s got limits, Beth, and you’re the only one who knows if they’re far out enough for you to exist inside of them.” Ruby lets out a shaky breath, huffing a laugh at the end of it. “That’s it, that’s my piece.”

“That’s it?” Beth can’t stop herself from asking. “You’re not going to…”

She trails off, not sure how to end the question, but Ruby picks up the thread.

“Tell you what you should do one way or the other?” Now Ruby laughs for real. “Because _that_ works so well. No, B. You have to figure that out for yourself. And honestly, I think you already know what you want, you’re just here to make sure I’m okay with it. Which, for the record, I’m _not._ I think this is a terrible idea, but I told you before, I’m with you.”

Beth lets out a long, slow breath. It’s less of a blessing than she’d hoped for, but far, far more of one than she thought she’d get.

She thinks of the electric, coming-alive feeling she gets when Rio looks at her, a challenge in the arch of his eyebrow. She thinks of the cascade, the surge of pure pleasure that crashes through her when that challenge gives way to surprise and delight—when she not only meets his expectations but exceeds them and maybe gets one over on him in the process. She thinks of the give and take between them, the moves and countermoves, and how fulfilling the game is, how it brightens her whole world, painting it in vivid colors she’d never even seen before. 

Then she thinks of how soft he can be when it’s just the two of them, how he’s let down his walls a few times, just enough for her to see the magnitude of what’s behind them, and how desperately she wants to see more. She thinks of the possibility of _them_ , of what they could be together. _A unit._

She’s standing on the edge of something vast and deep, and all that’s left to do is turn away or take a leap.

Beth nods, and this time it’s strong and sure. “I do. I want him. I want to make it work.”

Ruby snorts, and Beth knows it’s at the drama of it all, but she can’t find it in herself to be embarrassed, not when her head is swimming, spinning, lost in the relief of committing to her course.

“So, what’s the next step?” 

Beth turns to Ruby, her ice cold smile—the one she uses when she wants people to double take and wonder if they’ve swum into shark-infested waters without realizing how far they’ve gone from shore—spreading across her face. “I have a plan.”

—————

“You were right,” is what Beth opens with, unceremoniously dropping her bag on the bar and sliding onto a stool. She figures it’s a good olive branch of her own, considering that even though the conversation with Ruby diffused a lot of her pent up anger—anger that was mostly a crutch to begin with, something to keep the hurt, the nerves and uncertainty at a distance—she’s still a little irritated that he’d sent Mick to talk to her instead of coming himself.

“‘Bout what?” Rio asks, not missing a beat. 

He’s hunched over the bar, a glass of something amber in front of him. He doesn’t seem at all surprised to see her, and she can’t decide if that annoys or thrills her: that he knew she’d have something to say after seeing Mick, that she needed the anger to push her into reaching out, that maybe he’d counted on it. 

Beth signals for a drink, tilting her chin imperiously and glaring when the bartender glances from her to Rio—who ignores him, shifting on his stool to face Beth—and back again, not letting up until he pours her a bourbon. 

“I didn’t have a plan,” she admits, smoothing a hand along the polished wood bartop, feeling the edge dig into the crease in her palm, unable to look at Rio when she says it. “I wasn’t...I wasn’t entirely committed.”

She braces herself for some kind of snide commentary, ready to snap back, but he only huffs like that much was obvious, and she figures if he can let it go, she can too.

“So what, you figure it out now?”

“I think so.” 

She still doesn’t look at him, gaze firmly fixed on the woodgrain, tracing the whorls and swirls, but she can feel his eyes on her, thinks maybe he can hear all the layers to what she’s trying to tell him: that she knows what she wants, that she thinks she knows how to get there, that she’s not going to take it back.

The bartender sets a glass in front of her, ice tinkling delicately against the sides of the glass. She nods in thanks and pulls it towards her, swirling the bourbon around before taking a sip, relishing the burn that races down her throat. She takes a shaky breath. 

“I need your help.”

“Oh, you do?” 

Now she looks at him, and he’s looking back at her, chin propped lazily in one hand, the other drumming lightly against the bartop. The furious tempo of his fingers—so odds with his easy, relaxed posture—makes her think there’s more beneath his surface too. That maybe his nerves are strung just as tight as hers because he has as much riding on this as she does.

The moment stretches out between them, and he eyes her up and down, considering. The faintest smile curling around the corner of his lip for a second before dropping away altogether, something serious, almost grim, taking its place. “What’s in it for me?”

“What?” Beth frowns, the sudden severity throwing her almost as much as the question. “You said I could ask you for help.”

“I didn’t say it’d come for free. You’re tryin’ to be a boss now, yeah? That means you’re gonna get treated like one. No one’s gonna give you shit for free—”

“When have you ever given me _anything_ for free?” Beth mutters, but he ignores her.

“—and you fuck up, you don’t deliver, there’re consequences.” 

“I _know_ that, there _have_ been—“ she stops, Ruby’s words playing over in her head. 

_For someone who loves preaching about rotten eggs, you have to admit you’ve proven you’re his more times than one, and you’re still here._

Maybe Beth can admit there haven’t been as many consequences as there could have been.

She looks at him, and he looks back, eyes dark and fathomless. 

_If you mess up at that, you go to jail, or you die,_ he’d told her so long ago in that alley.

 _You don’t get second chances in this line of work_ , he’d told her no more than a week ago in her kitchen.

He’s been trying to tell her all along, she realizes. It’s not just him, or what he could’ve done but didn’t; it’s everyone else she’ll be dealing with. The people she’s determined to deal with on her own, the people he’s been putting himself in front of in order to keep them at a distance from her—whether for control or safety, she doesn't even know if _he_ knows. But she does know that this could get so much uglier than it has and she needs to be ready for it.

She swallows hard. “I understand.”

He raises an eyebrow, skeptical. “What you got, then?”

“For starters, we should buy a business.” The shock that ripples over his face is so, so satisfying. 

“Come again?”

“I don’t know how you’re planning to wash your cash,” Beth begins. “But I can’t go back to the secret shopping, so I’m going to need somewhere else to do it. I hadn’t figured that part out yet...before, when—”

 _When I thought you were dead,_ she doesn’t say, but the way he purses his lips makes her think maybe he heard it anyway.

“So I’ve been thinking about it,” she continues. “And I think we should invest in something that we can both use. Together. As partners. _Real_ partners this time. Not the kind of partners where you call all the shots and tell me nothing.”

He studies her, his face completely blank, and Beth holds her breath, hoping he hears what she’s saying—that she’s trying to tie them together like maybe he was with the neverending debts, but on a more level playing field.

Then he smiles, sly, but there’s a gleam in his eyes that has Beth exhaling in a gust, biting back her own triumphant grin that he’s willing to at least play the game.

“Yeah, I’m still not seeing what’s in it for me,” he says, dragging his hand across his mouth, repositioning it for a new angle. “You’re not exactly flush, seems like you’d be looking for me to front you. How’s that partners?”

“Well, obviously I’ll pay you back—”

“Oh, is that obvious?”

Beth rolls her eyes, but has to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from beaming at the almost flirtatious lilt to the question. She licks her lips, inwardly bracing herself to lay out the rest of her offer.

“It’s all in my name. If something goes wrong, I’m the one that goes down. I put it on me.”

This time, when his expression goes slack and his drumming fingers still, it isn’t satisfaction that sweeps through her, but something deeper—more bitter, more sweet. She can see in the thousand different things that flash through his eyes that he recognizes the words she deliberately chose. 

This time, he’s the one that swallows hard, his tattoo bobbing, and Beth isn’t sure if he’s breathing.

“Listen, I know it’s...I know it’s not much.” She takes a breath, forcing down her pride. “I don’t have a lot right now, but I will and I guess...I’m asking you to meet me halfway.”

The silence stretches between them for a long moment, then another. The sounds of the bar around them distant and held at bay by the force of her attention on him.

Then, he nods like he did on that day so long ago in her kitchen, when she’d sat breathless with tears in her eyes, a gun to her head. It’s just the barest tip of his chin—so shallow she might’ve missed it if she weren’t watching so closely—and just like that day, the sight sends a shockwave rushing through her, down to her toes and back up again, making her head spin. 

“A’ight,” he says, soft and sure. “We’ll give it a shot.”

Before she can stop it, she feels a grin break across her face like the dawn, bright and real and crooked, and his eyes crinkle in response, a warmth in them she doesn’t think she’s ever seen before.

“This don’t work out, you’re back on the payroll, yeah?”

Beth rolls her eyes, her grin dropping away, but the bright sparkling feeling inside her remains. “Yeah, yeah. You’ll get your money one way or another.”

He snorts, straightening up and letting the hand on his chin drop, dangling off his knee, so his fingers nearly brush her knee. “So, what you need?”

It takes every inch of Beth’s will to stay focused, to not shift her leg the hair’s breadth it’d take for them to touch. “I need you to call Mia like you want to set up a meet to talk about a new deal.”

Rio goes cold, pulling his hand back slightly, his shutters snapping into place, closing anything warm and playful away, leaving only vengeful, icy purpose in its place. “And why’m I doin’ that? Seems like the only thing she’s earned from me is consequences.”

Beth feels a shiver trying to race its way up her back, an instinctive lizard-brain response to the predator that’s suddenly perched next to her. It’s not fear, but rather something hot and wild she never knew she had inside her until she met him.

“I know that, and she does too. I’m not saying you should actually meet with her, I just need her to get suspicious and start digging.” She lets the steel in her spine creep into her tone. “I need her to find _me.”_

Rio studies her for a long moment, his eyes darting back and forth across her face, looking for what, Beth doesn’t know, but whatever he finds has a knife-sharp grin cutting across his.

“What you thinkin’, ma?”

Beth’s teeth come out in response, pointy and a little bit feral.


End file.
